Report claims the UK wanted to buy 1970s North Sea oil

A report on the history of the oil industry has claimed the UK government wanted to buy Scotland's oil fields.

An academic from the University of Aberdeen has spent a decade trawling through government documents for the project.

Prof Alex Kemp, the report's author, said leading government figures wanted to buy the North Sea's major fields from BP when significant discoveries were made in the 1970s.

The report "Official History of North Sea Oil and Gas" was commissioned by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999.