Over the weekend, Lord Michael Heseltine, the UK Defense Secretary at the time and former Deputy Prime Minister to Margaret Thatcher, told a Scottish newspaper he had personally made the decision to block oil activity, claiming it would interfere with UK submarine operations in the area.

“Of course they kept denying it, but really the benefits to the local economy and to the economy of Scotland would, and could still be very considerable,” Lambie asserted, as he was the one, who caused a storm at Westminster after he claimed a senior Conservative minister had told him the MoD had blocked the exploration of a “significant find of oil” off the West coast of Scotland in 1983.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Post newspaper Lord Heseltine said, “We’ve still got nuclear submarines, we’ve still got a defense alliance with America, we still have to defend this country against any contingency – many of which we can’t foresee – so what’s changed?”

“I feel vindicated by this. For years they have denied they blocked oil exploration off the west coast, but I knew it was true as I had heard it directly from a Conservative minister in the government,” Lambie told RIA Novosti, still insisting the MoD should consider relocating their training area elsewhere.