A senior Scottish Tory appeared to suggest yesterday that a Conservative Government might be dissuaded from cutting the cash given to Scotland by the Treasury only if Scots elected several Tory MPs.

Andrew Fulton, the new Scottish Tory chairman, made the remark in an interview for BBC Scotland's Politics Show. Asked what the election of a a David Cameron-led Government would mean for the Barnett Formula and the block grant from the Treasury to Scotland, he said: “David Cameron has genuinely said he would govern for the UK and look on the devolved parts of the UK in a kindly way. We do not know how that will work out in pounds, shillings and pence ... It depends on how much of a representation we can get in Scotland.”

The remarks were seized on by political opponents who said they could be seen as completely undermining Mr Cameron's speech to his party's Scottish conference last Friday when he said he would treat Scotland with respect and would seek to work with the SNP administration at Holyrood.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader and Deputy First Minister, said that perhaps without intending to, Mr Fulton had confided that the Tories would make no guarantees about Scottish spending levels.

“At a time when Scottish oil revenues are bankrolling the UK Treasury - with the Chancellor raking in an extra £4 billion on the back of rising prices - it is outrageous that the Tories should even suggest cutting Scotland's budget. It shows that, behind the Cameron gloss, the Tories haven't changed their spots,” Ms Sturgeon said.

“The Tories will go nowhere in Scotland over the next two years by refusing to rule out cutting our spending share”, she added.

Mr Fulton also revealed inner Tory thinking on the optimum number of seats the party is hoping for in Scotland at the next General Election in 2010.

He said the party was hoping for a “full people carrier of Scottish MPs rather than a taxi load”, meaning no more than ten and no fewer than five. At the moment, the Conservatives have one MP from Scotland but among the seats Mr Fulton said they were targeting were Dumfries and Galloway, which they held until 2005, and East Renfrewshire, the seat of Jim Murphy, the Minister for Europe in Gordon Brown's Government.

His estimate of the party's best case scenario was more precise than that of Annabel Goldie, the party's Scottish leader, who said at the conference in Ayr that she wanted a “raft” of Scottish Tory MPs elected. Most observers believe that any Tory advance from their present low point would be restricted to, at best, three or four seats.

Mr Fulton, 64, was appointed in March and is a former MI6 agent who was head of station in Washington DC. He spent more than 30 years with HM Diplomatic Service and also held postings in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Rome, East Berlin, Oslo and New York.