A senior member of David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet is under pressure to apologise to Scots for reportedly suggesting that NHS funds should be taken from Glasgow and spent in leafy towns in the Home Counties.

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that the Government's policy of spending more on healthcare in poor areas was fundamentally flawed. “If spending on healthcare alone determined health outcomes, Glasgow would be the healthiest place in Britain and Wokingham [in Berkshire] the least healthy,” Mr Lansley was reported as saying in a speech on public health.

Labour, he said, had skewed NHS spending in favour of cities such as Glasgow, but towns in the South of England deserved more funds because they had large numbers of pensioners.

Margaret Curran, Labour's Scottish health spokeswoman and the MSP for Glasgow Baillieston, said that Mr Lansley should come to Glasgow and apologise. “I am absolutely appalled that a senior member of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet should call for NHS cash to be taken from Glasgow. His crass comments show the Tories in their true colours. They are anti-Scottish and they don't care about ordinary people,” she said.

A Conservative Party spokesman said Mr Lansley had never argued that money should be taken away from Glasgow. “He was trying to draw a contrast between the Conservative approach and a Labour Government which simply wants to tax and spend and thinks money is the solution to every ill. Money alone is not a guarantee that people will have better health. It is about how the money is spent.”

Labour also turned its guns on the SNP yesterday, claiming that health spending per person in England would outstrip spending in Scotland by 2012. Scotland spends £216 more on health per person than England, but Labour said that England would be spending £88 more per head in four years, and that the gap would increase.

Health spending in Scotland, which is a devolved matter, has been historically higher than in England because of the country's higher levels of deprivation, rates of chronic illness and the need to cater for Scotland's more remote areas. Labour said that it had based its figures on the annual increases in the health budget in England of 6.7 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent in Scotland. By 2013-14, Scotland would be spending £2,540 per head while England would be spending £2,628 per head.

The Scottish government said that despite the tightest financial settlement from the Treasury since devolution, it had invested more money in the NHS than ever. “We have increased spending per head on health in Scotland to record levels and spend more per head than in England,” a government spokesman said.

“Labour is guilty of negative scaremongering and inventing spending figures for a period that is yet to be determined. One of the first actions of this SNP government was to reverse Labour's decision to close accident and emergency units at Monklands and Ayr hospitals by saving them. We are also phasing out prescription charges to remove the tax on ill health.”

Times Recommends

• Sarah Brown says 'no thanks' to veal at G8 - twice
• Stockton-on-Tees is obesity capital of Britain
• Stores blame poor sales on Murray factor