YES campaigners should leave oil and gas out of the economic arguments in the next independence campaign, the chairman of the SNP’s growth commission has told the BBC.

Former MSP Andrew Wilson, who was tasked by Nicola Sturgeon to chair the 14 person panel of experts, also argued that the Scottish Government was wrong to have included oil and gas revenues in a bid to make the financial case for separation in the last referendum.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Analysis programme last night, Wilson said a future campaign needed to be more realistic.

Wilson said that even though Yes campaigners argued “oil was a bonus and not the basis” of the economic case for independence in 2014, that those revenues were “baked into the numbers and it was indeed a basis.”

He added: “So I can say with some certainty in terms of our own work that we’ll assume for the purposes of our projections that oil is producing zero revenues and therefore treat any revenues that we get from oil as a proper windfall to be used on intergenerational projects rather than spent on spending today.”

Though Wilson said it was “true that the economic circumstances are fraught at present”, that made the case to change the way Scotland operates more compelling. Independence, he said, would give Scotland, “more tools”.

He continued: “The energy sector has had troubles and the fiscal inheritance that we would have from the rest of the UK is a very difficult one.

“All of the above, however, would be a reason to change the way you’re operating rather than to stay stuck to your deckchair on the Titanic.

“There are plenty of precedents that we’re looking to from around the world of small countries who have put governance in place and put programmes in place that can both ensure that their economy grows and the welfare of people increase.

“But the financial footing that they’re on is one that the markets and people who would be funding the government can respect, and that’s what we would seek to achieve.”

Scots, Wilson argued, would have to work hard to make independence successful, but he told the BBC it would be wrong to suggest that meant “short term pain”.

He said: “I do think there will be a very purposeful approach to all of us working very hard to make it successful.

“I guess that’s why oil’s not a particularly helpful argument – because it gives the suggestion that somehow there’s a free lunch and that we won’t have to work, and of course we all will have to work no matter what happens.

“Independence would give us more tools and that’s what’s different”.

In recent weeks, the Tory Government have suggested the SNP are choosing the EU over trading with the rest of the UK by staking independence on the EU and Brexit.

Wilson, however, said it was “imperative” for Scotland to continue to have full access to both the UK and EU single markets, and to be able to grow its population.

Scottish Conservative shadow finance secretary Murdo Fraser leapt on Wilson’s comment about oil forming part of the economic case for independence three years ago.

He said: “The full scale of Alex Salmond’s bluster and evasion in the 2014 referendum campaign is finally being exposed. He tried to claim oil revenues would be a ‘bonus’ to an independent Scotland.

“As his close ally Andrew Wilson has now conceded, oil revenues were ‘baked’ into their numbers and formed the ‘basis’ for an independent Scotland’s finances.

“Mr Salmond has never admitted he tried to mislead people on oil during the 2014 referendum. Now that even his own SNP colleagues are owning up, it is time he did so himself.

“If the SNP is now admitting oil is a bonus, it must set out which taxes would rise and what public services would be cut in order to fill an independent Scotland’s £15bn deficit.

“Better still, the Nationalists should stop trying to make their sums work, get on with the day job, and dump their unwanted plans for a divisive second referendum.”

The report by Wilson, and the other 13 experts on the panel is due in several weeks.