Government Expenditure

HC Deb 20 November 1996 vol 285 cc976-8

12. Mr. David Evans

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the current total Government expenditure per capita in Scotland. [3470]

Mr. Michael Forsyth

Identifiable expenditure per head was £4,505 in Scotland—about 25 per cent. higher than in England.

Mr. Evans

If that lot over there get their way on devolution, will us English stop subsidising their way of life? When the tartan tax takes over, will we police Hadrian's wall to stop the marauding Scots coming into England, which will by then be a tax haven—so they will all want to come here? Furthermore, if we have devolution, can my right hon. Friend assure me that Scottish Members of Parliament will have no authority in this House at all?

Mr. Forsyth

I think that is a fair summary of the arguments against the Labour party's case for a tax-raising Parliament. My hon. Friend put it very eloquently.

Mr. McFall

Can the Secretary of State explain why a formula that is widely seen to be fair by all United Kingdom parties should now be seen as unfair in the context of a Scottish Parliament? In a country where, after 17 years of Conservative rule, one in five households have no one in work, as many as 1 million elderly people are paying the penalty of the Tory VAT increases on heating, and thousands of young people are leaving school for a no-hope jobless future, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is nothing less than shameful that a politically vacuous, illiterate and ignorant English Back Bencher should suggest that we in Scotland cannot manage our expenditure with a Scottish Parliament?

Mr. Forsyth

I dare say my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) has done more for wealth creation than has the hon. Gentleman. If he is puzzled as to why the formula would no longer continue, the answer is that he cannot expect this House to continue to vote 25 per cent. more money for the Scots than for hon. Members' own constituents in England if the hon. Gentleman and his party have their way and there is a tax-raising Parliament in Scotland. It is because the hon. Gentleman and his party wish to gerrymander our constitution that they place that funding at risk. The people who would suffer would not be the hon. Gentleman and his cronies in the Labour party; it would be the honourable, ordinary people of Scotland who would find their services jeopardised.