Scotland 'to escape Tory cuts'

Published on Wednesday 7 January 2009 20:57

SCOTLAND will escape the worst of the spending cuts imposed by a future Conservative government, the Scottish Tories claimed last night.

David Cameron announced earlier this week that, if elected, he would institute 5 billion of spending cuts across government departments to help cope with the economic downturn.

Scotland's share of this would normally be about 10 per cent, or 500 million of cuts.

But a Scottish Tory spokesman said last night that the plans had been drawn up in such a way that Scotland would only have to find 28 million of cuts – far short of its 500 million population share.

This is because the Conservatives' plans would affect all departments except health and education, the two biggest devolved budgets.

Most of Scotland's block grant comes to these two big departments so, by keeping these budgets intact, the Conservatives believe that Scotland's overall budget will remain virtually intact as well.