MPs accused the Government of “feeding the destruction” of the United Kingdom after expenditure figures showed that England received the least amount of public funding per head in Britain.

The Government spent £6,361 a head in England, compared with £8,216 in Northern Ireland, £7,597 in Scotland and £7,248 in Wales. Identifiable expenditure for England as a whole amounted to £318.6 billion, or 81 per cent of the British total, compared with £38.5 billion in Scotland (9.8 per cent), £21.4 billion in Wales (5.4 per cent) and £14 billion in Northern Ireland (3.6 per cent).

The figures, published yesterday in Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland 2004-05, provoked anger from English MPs and fuelled an anti-Scottish backlash.

David Maclean, the Conservatives’ former Chief Whip and MP for Penrith and the Border, said: “The Government has got to address this because it is feeding the destruction of the United Kingdom.

“Not only have we got an unbalanced Parliament in Westminster, with Scottish MPs having more rights than English MPs, we are having legislation foisted on England with the votes of Scottish MPs. We are getting fundamentally greater expenditure on people in Scotland, which is aggravating rural poverty in England.

“If the Government does not address this, it will find an unstoppable demand in England for separation. It is not Tory policy, it is the Government that is destroying the United Kingdom.”

John Redwood, Conservative MP for Wokingham, said: “When it comes to certain public services, people in England do think it is unfair that devolution allows Scotland to vote for things England is not allowed.”

The figures are also a blow to the Scottish National Party, which claims that an independent Scotland would be better off financially. According to the review, the Government spent £11.3 billion more on Scotland than it raised there.

The SNP said that the data was questionable. Stewart Hosie, the party’s Treasury spokesman, said: “Either their figures are correct, which would mean that after almost ten years of economic mismanagement of Scotland by Labour, we are in a poor economic position in comparison to all our successful neighbours such as Norway and Ireland. Or, these statistics are misleading and inaccurate and this is nothing more than an attempt to engender fear in the SNP and our positive arguments for fresh thinking to boost Scotland’s economy.”

The SNP said that according to its analysis, Scotland had a surplus of £2.8 billion, relative to the rest of Britain, and revenues from North Sea oil would keep it in surplus.

Labour, which is neck and neck in polls with the SNP before next year’s Scottish Parliament elections, said that the Nationalist position had been discredited. “The SNP’s economics and finances have never stacked up. The notion that their economic black holes can somehow be filled now and forever by the black gold of the North Sea is once more discredited by this report,” a spokesman said.

The figures show that since 1980 identifiable spending on Scotland has been 10.2 per cent of expenditure in Britain, but that revenues raised in Scotland have averaged 9.1 per cent of the British total. In recent years Scotland’s advantage has narrowed, with spending on the rest of Britain, particularly in England, growing at a faster rate.

Scots received more than £3,000 a head on welfare and benefits in 2004-05, 45 per cent more than the British average of £2,072.

Identifiable spending on health was £1,513 a head in Scotland, 10.5 per cent more than the British average of £1,369.

Spending on education and training was £1,160 a head in Scotland, 6 per cent more than the British average of £1,093.

In enterprise and economic development spending per head was £123, 12 per cent above the British average of £109 a head.

£11.3bn: The extra amount that the Government spent in Scotland in addition to the money it raised there

Source: Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland 2004-05

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