The granite city has weathered many storms over the years but people there now fear the impact of the government’s tax plans on the local economy and jobs

‘We’ve all accepted that the North Sea is declining,” says Roy, 70, a taxi driver working in Aberdeen for the past 20 years. “Over the years there have been a few huge market crashes but we always recover. This time, it’s a real decline.”

Drive along the granite city’s Union Street and there are dozens of shuttered shops, some empty for almost a decade following one of the longest routs in the history of the oil market, which brought oil prices to lows of less than $30 (£23) a barrel in 2016, less than half its value today.