Scotland gets nearly £2,000 per head more than England in public spending despite Nicola Sturgeon complaining about lack of cash in her drive to break up the UK
Scotland is getting nearly £2,000 per head more than England in public spending despite Nicola Sturgeon complaining about a lack of cash.
The SNP leader has regularly used the level of funding from the Treasury as part of her drive to split up the UK.
She caused particular fury recently by deploying the gripe in relation to coronavirus – despite the £9.2billion extra already allocated to the Scottish government to deal with the pandemic.
But the latest figures show that Scotland has continued to benefit from far more state spending than England.
The identifiable outlay amounted to £11,566 per person in 2019-20, up from £11,247 the previous year. By contrast south of the border spending was £9,604 per head, having risen from £9,296 in 2018-19.
The latest Treasury figures for 2019-20 show that Scotland has continued to benefit from far more public spending than England
This heat map shows how identifiable spending on public services varies widely across the UK
Northern Ireland received the highest per capita sum, at £11,987. Wales also received proportionally more than England at £10,929.
The UK average was £9,895 per head last year.
The spending gap with England – thought to have grown from just £1,000 when the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999 – has sparked Tory demands for reform the Barnett Formula, which is used by the UK Government to figure out how much funding should be given to the other home nations based on funding in England.
But others have suggested that the cash supplement is the ‘price of keeping the union’.
According to data published over the summer, around £65billion-£66billion of revenues were raised in Scotland in 2019/20 – equivalent to between £11,940 and £12,060 for every person.
Scotland accounted for 9.2 per cent of UK public spending, around 8 per cent of UK revenues and 8.2 per cent of the UK population last year.
Ms Sturgeon’s drive to break up the UK was boosted last week with a poll suggesting support for Scottish independence is running at 56 per cent.
Amid rising alarm among unionists, the latest research also found the SNP was on track for a thumping victory at Holyrood elections in May.
Northern Ireland has the highest spending per head, while the East Midlands is the region with the lowest level
An Ipsos MORI poll for STV last week found that excluding ‘don’t knows’, 56 per cent of Scots said they would vote Yes to independence in a referendum
The strong backing for Ms Sturgeon’s separatist cause in the Ipsos MORI survey – just short of the record 58 per cent in October – adds to pressure on Boris Johnson.
The PM has so far dismissed the First Minister’s demands for a referendum to be held as early as next year, after both sides accepted the 2014 contest would settle the issue for a ‘generation’.
However, she has vowed to stand on a Holyrood manifesto to hold a vote, and threatened to take the row to the Supreme Court.
SNP politicians have been gloating that resisting the calls will merely fuel the surge in support for a split north of the border.