Skip to main content

Public Expenditure

Volume 940: debated on Friday 2 December 1977

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what amount public expenditure would be increased or decreased in Scotland if a block grant for services proposed to be devolved to a Scottish Assembly were based on the same expenditure per head of population as is spent on the same services in England.

On this basis total public expenditure on services proposed for devolution to Scotland would have been about £500 million lower in 1975–76 than the corresponding figure shown in Table 1 of Cmnd. 6890.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the expenditure from public funds, excluding rates raised locally, per head of population in Scotland, Wales and England, respectively, on those services which are to be devolved to a Scottish Assembly should the Scotland Bill become law, in the most recent annual period for which figures are available.

I assume that the hon. Member has in mind expenditure on services proposed for devolution to Scotland and its English and Welsh equivalent financed from moneys voted by Parliament. On this basis a necessarily approximate estimate suggests that the following amounts of expenditure per head were financed from votes in 1975–76:

Scotland£360
Wales£320
England£280

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what percentage public expenditure per head of population, excluding rates raised locally in Scotland, exceeded or was less than the comparable figure for England in respect of those services which are proposed to be devolved to a Scottish Assembly, in the most recent annual period for which figures are available.

I assume that the hon. Member has in mind expenditure on services proposed for devolution to Scotland and its English and Welsh equivalent financed from moneys voted by Parliament. On this basis, Scottish expenditure per head financed from votes exceeded that for England in 1975–76 by a figure somewhere about 25–30 per cent.