The leader-elect of Labour in Scotland has told people in England to stop complaining that they would be better off financially without the Scots.

Wendy Alexander said that the claim could just as easily be made about other parts of the United Kingdom, resulting in London unilaterally declaring independence from other regions of England such as the North East and Merseyside.

Ms Alexander, who takes over formally as Labour leader north of the Border on September 14, said in an interview with The Times that such criticism missed the point of the 300-year-old Union between the two countries. Contrary to the widespread impression in England, Scotland did not get preferential treatment from the Treasury, she said.

Figures from the Scottish Executive show that the Government spends £1,236 more on every person in Scotland than it does in England. But Ms Alexander said: “It does not come down to numbers. Every part of the UK outside London is a net beneficiary from the Exchequer, and Scotland does not get a uniquely good deal.

“That argument, that England would be better off without Scotland, would lead you to declare UDI for London . . . and would lead to California seceding from the rest of the United States.”

The impression that Scotland receives better public services than England as a result of devolution has gained ground south of the Border, especially since the Scottish National Party took power in the Scottish Parliament in May.

As well as continuing policies such as free personal care for the elderly, introduced by the Labour-led Executive in 2002, the SNP is committed to introducing free prescriptions for the chronically ill from next April as well as ending tuition fees and replacing loans with grants for Scottish students.

Ms Alexander, who is the sister of Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, believes that people in England should put aside these differences in policy between the two countries and look to the bigger picture of two countries “sharing risk, revenue and resources”.

She added: “The bigger issue is what signal it would send to the rest of the world if we [the English and the Scots] said we could not live together.”

Ms Alexander also hinted strongly that she took a different attitude from Gordon Brown’s to the growing clamour in Scotland for the Parliament in Edinburgh to be given greater control over its finances. The devolved Parliament currently receives its £30 billion annual budget in the form of a grant from Westminster, and its ability to raise tax revenue is limited.

Mr Brown said before the election in May that Holyrood’s wideranging powers in areas such as health, education and justice were sufficient and there was no need to alter the Scotland Act that set up the Parliament.

Ms Alexander told The Times: “I have an open mind. Times change. It is ten years since the Scotland Act. It was Donald Dewar [the late First Minister and the man regarded widely as Ms Alexander’s political mentor] who said that this was not the last word on the devolution settlement.

“We have to be alert to criticism from within Scotland about whether Scottish politicians here are sufficiently accountable.”

But Ms Alexander, who finds herself leading Scottish Labour as the party experiences opposition for the first time since devolution in 1999, added that the argument over more powers cut both ways.

There could also, she said, be a case for power over policy areas such as security and climate change to lie entirely with Westminster since these were clearly “one-island issues” which affected the whole of the UK.

She also gave warning to Alex Salmond, the SNP First Minister, that if he chose to hold a referendum on Scottish separation – as he and his party have pledged – he would lose. Polls show that fewer than one in three Scots supports separation from the rest of the UK. “The fact that the Nationalists want to end the UK is not a reason for the rest of us to shy away from how could the partnership between the countries be best strengthened.”

Asked what her “big idea” was for her leadership, Ms Alexander said: “I want to see social and economic change in Scotland, not constitutional change.”

It is a theme she has returned to repeatedly since taking the reins of the party: that what people want is politicians who listen a bit more and lecture a bit less. She wants to be on the side of the voters and understand their issues; she wants Scotland to be aspirational.

It all makes her sound like another politician who was the first woman to lead her party. She is aware of the comparisons. “One of the interesting things about Mrs Thatcher is that at the start of her career in the 1970s she was only interested in talking to the nation, not the Westminister village, and that, I think, is one of our challenges in Scotland,” she said.

“What gets Alex Salmond up in the morning is his desire to see the end of the UK. But what people will ask him in four years’ time [at the next election] is whether he spent his time making Scotland a better place, or did he spend his time on constitutional change and on arguments about which flag should fly over Edinburgh Castle?”

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