Blair Snub to Scotland Over Livingstone's Anti-Scottish Outburst

SNP MP, Mike Weir has today (Wednesday) challenged the Prime Minister at PMQs over remarks by Labour London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who claimed London kept Scots in 'the lifestyle to which they are accustomed'.

Mr Weir has published research detailing the true scale of government investment in London, including £26 billion in projects ranging from the Olympics to Crossrail. The paper also highlights a £280 million annual subsidy resulting from the disproportionate level of high-wage senior civil service positions in the UK capital.

At PMQ's today Mr Weir asked:

"The Prime Minister may have seen the remarks by his colleague, the Labour Mayor of London, that Crossrail is necessary for Scotland "to live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed".

"Isn't this something of a brass neck considering this year £12 billion of Scottish oil revenues are enabling the Prime Minister's government to live in the style to which they have become accustomed."

Commenting on the Prime Minister's reply Mr Weir said:

"Tony Blair totally failed to distance himself from Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone's inaccurate remarks. There is now little doubt that Labour have resurrected their 1999 tactic to 'engender fear' and this now includes smears about the true state of UK finances.

"The Prime Minister's response was true to type as he resorted to scaremongering and empty attacks on Scotland and the SNP. Tony Blair can bluster and try to talk Scotland down, but he cannot hide the fact that this year we are subsdising the rest of the UK to the tune of £800 for every man, woman and child in Scotland."

SNP Leader Alex Salmond MP has responded to the Mayor's remarks by calling on the Scots in London to withdraw their support from Ken Livingstone at the ballot box. Speaking on BBC London this morning Mr Salmond warned: "Ken Livingstone's rainbow coalition has just lost its tartan"

Commenting Mr Salmond said:

"Ken Livingstone should think twice before taking any more swipes at Scotland. With thousands of Scots living and voting in London, he should spend less time cracking anti-Scottish jokes, or it'll be the London Scots who have the last laugh at the ballot box.

"Ken is also completely wrong about the funding balance. It is the height of irony that he chose to make such uninformed remarks on the day the SNP introduced a Bill in the House of Commons to bring home to Scotland the billions in oil revenue that are keeping Gordon Brown's Treasury afloat.

"When you include all Scotland's resources, we subsidise the rest of the UK to the tune of £800 for every person living in Scotland."

ENDS

Notes: Research on London subsidies and Scottish oil revenues is printed below.

London's Secret Subsidy

1. Livingstone's London fantasy

London Mayor, Ken Livingstone has claimed that London needs Crossrail "to keep London's economy ticking over so that we can continue to pay for the Scottish to live the lifestyle to which they are accustomed." This flawed analysis fails to take into account the money that flows from Scotland to the rest of the UK and ignores the extra investment and secret subsidies for the UK's capital city - money that pumps billions into the London economy.

2. Olympic sized subsidies

London is the UK's main beneficiary of so-called 'national' spending. In the last 10 years alone, the British capital has been awarded a jaw-dropping £26 billion for a range of projects:

• London 2012 - £1.75 billion in funding from the lottery or general taxation
• Crossrail - £13.9 billion to £14.8 billion
• Channel Tunnel rail link - £5.2 billion
• Jubilee line extension - £3.2 billion
• British Library - £0.5 billion
• DLR extension - £0.5 billion
• East London line extension - £0.8 billion

3. Britain's London bias

We know from a series of parliamentary answers at the beginning of 2006 that the additional costs for Scottish taxpayers of employing people in London compared to Scotland is £146 million - shown in the higher salaries paid in the UK's capital.

Not only do our public servants get paid more for working in the high-wage south-east, more of the highest paid roles are based in the capital. Again government figures show that 63% of the senior civil service is based in London, bringing a further boost of £135 million to that city's economy .

Similarly for 11 departments providing breakdowns for their core functions, 74.7% of the government's rates bills is spent in a handful of central London council areas, that is £39.3 million of spending.

4. The £800 a head annual cost of Britain

The Chancellor himself has forecast oil revenues this year of £10 billion.

At current world oil prices this is likely to rise to £12.5 billion. That means almost £1 billion a month is flowing from the Scottish sector of the North Sea straight into the London exchequer. As a result, this year, Scotland is in relative surplus compared to the UK by some £4 billion - equivalent to every Scot sending south £800 a year.