Tories confirm Scottish spending cut plans

SNP Treasury spokesperson Stewart Hosie MP has seized on an admission by Conservative Scotland spokesperson, David Mundell MP, that the Conservatives support Labour plans to slash Scottish public spending.

Mr Mundell’s admission comes as a massive embarrassment to Scottish Tory MSPs who are backing the Scottish Government’s budget.

Commenting Mr Hosie said:

"David Mundell has made a massive political blunder with this admission of the Conservatives’ cash cutting agenda for Scotland.

"It is clear that the Conservatives agenda is little different from Labour's plans to cut £1 billion from Scotland's budget.

"Behind David Cameron’s smiles and spin, just like Labour, the Tories are set on cutting Scotland’s budget. David Mundell should be fighting the £1bn planned cuts to the Scottish budget, not backing them.

"Apart from being extremely irresponsible and counter-productive at a time of recession, David Mundell’s blundering intervention is also acutely embarrassing for Scottish Tory MSPs who are backing the Scottish Government’s budget.

"There is now no argument against fiscal autonomy for Scotland - the alternative is seeing our public spending being slashed year on year, and our public services being undermined."

Notes:

1. BBC Newsnight Scotland, 16 February 2009

Glenn Campbell: "The talk in this interview is about the issue of addressing unfairness - perceived unfairness - within the union. Would a Conservative Government then look again at the proposed cuts to the Scottish Budget over the next couple of years if you were in a position to do so?

David Mundell: "Well I think it's inevitable as when we head into these difficult financial times, when there is going to have to be restraint in spending, that there is going to have to be restraint in spending in Scotland. And I think it's unrealistic to pretend otherwise...it's a sort of fiction that Alex Salmond and the SNP promulgate - the fact that Scotland could be exempt from the financial difficulties and constraints that the rest of the United Kingdom will have to face."

The £500 million annual cuts for Scotland planned by the UK Government for next year and the year after comprises £380 million from the £5 billion cuts at UK level, and another £125 million of cuts in Scotland as a consequence of reducing the NHS capital spending level in England. These figures have been published by Professor David Bell, adviser to the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee.

Pre-Budget Report 2008: Effects on Scottish Government Budget Paper by Professor David Bell, Budget Adviser to the Finance Committee Extracts:

"The 2010-11 resource DEL includes a non-specific £5bn of "Additional Value for Money Savings". These have also been referred to as "Efficiency Savings" and, in Scotland, come on top of the 2 per cent annual efficiency savings already built into the budget. If these savings are shared equally across DEL budgets, then the Scottish Government’s budget would fall by £380m."

"There is also a reduction in the Department of Health’s capital budget of £1.4bn in 2010-11. This is not a reprofiling and will mean a recurring reduction of around £125m in the Scottish Government capital budget."