Capital's economy has a big future despite crisis, says PM

And he insists Scotland will refuse to go "back to the future" with high unemployment under the Tories.

The Prime Minister's vote of confidence came just days before he is expected to announce the general election date.

In an exclusive Evening News interview, he said: "Edinburgh is an important world centre of financial services and will remain so.

"Despite the disappointments of the last two years, the expertise and dynamism of Edinburgh-based and Scottish-based banking, insurance and financial services industries is going to be crucial to the future of our country.

"The financial sector is backed up by a business, legal and commercial legal sector that is also, in Scotland and particularly in Edinburgh, a very successful and important branch of our economy.

"If you take business, legal and financial services, there is a very big future not only for what they do in Britain but also for what they do in selling to the world too."

And Mr Brown took a swipe at the SNP and its arguments for independence.

He said: "The saving of our financial institutions was within the union, it was as part of the union, and the idea that Scottish banks could have restructured themselves on their own in a separate Scotland has been exposed.

"We didn't ask, as a British Government, where the banks were based in the United Kingdom. We just felt it was right to help all banks that were in difficulty."

Mr Brown said although jobs had been lost during the recession, Scotland had seen an overall increase of 230,000 jobs since 1997 and voiced fears about a Tory victory.

He said: "Any policy that puts those jobs at risk is one I would want to question. It's clear the Conservatives would not do the things we are doing with the new deal on jobs, the apprenticeships, the additional students at universities, our support for school leavers and under-24s – all these things are vitally important. My fear is Conservative economic policy is very similar to that of the 1980s and would cause higher unemployment in Scotland.

"Scotland knows the price that is paid when you have high unemployment and we are not prepared to go back to that."

Mr Brown also said a re-elected Labour government would transfer more powers to Holyrood in the wake of the Calman report. He said: "We want to move ahead with reforms because we believe that is the right thing for Scotland. We don't believe that independence or separation is the answer."