Centre for Cities Report - UK Economic Stagnation Impacting on Aberdeen

That the Parliament notes with deep concern the Centre for Cities report, Cities Outlook 2024, which found that while the UK’s economic stagnation has been felt in every part of these islands, Aberdeen has been hit the hardest by what it sees as the failing UK economy; recognises the report's findings that since 2010, and particularly since 2014, average disposable earnings in Aberdeen have fallen by £45,240 per person compared to what the Centre for Cities predicts they would have otherwise been; understands that this fall in income has been reflected in the loss of 9,000 oil and gas jobs and 30% of retail jobs over the last decade; regrets that this decline is despite the reported promise that Aberdeen would be "Better Together" in the UK; recognises that hundreds of billions of pounds in oil and gas taxes have flowed from the north east to the UK Treasury over the years, with, it considers, little return; believes that this report underpins the need for a just transition for the north east; calls on the UK Government to pay back some of the hundreds of billions of pounds of oil and gas tax revenue that it considers has been taken from Aberdeen, beginning by matching the Scottish Government's £500 million Just Transition Fund for the north east, and is of the opinion that Aberdonians and the people of Scotland as a whole should be given the right to choose their own future in a Scottish independence referendum.