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FM comments on UK spending review
09/10/2007
Following the announcement of the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review by the UK Government, First Minister Alex Salmond said:
"The Treasury claim that the real-terms increase in Scotland over the next three years is 1.8 per cent per annum. That in itself is dramatically different from settlements of recent years.
"What they haven't revealed is two things. One is that the actual, real-terms increase over the next 3 years is only 1.4 per cent. The difference is explained by re-drawing the baseline for English health expenditure. Therefore, what we are seeing is the consequences for the Scottish baseline figures - therefore the actual increase is not 1.8 per cent, it's 1.4 per cent.
"What we have learned in analysis is something much more serious even than that. That is the profile of the increases over the next three years. The first year will be 0.5 per cent in real terms, followed by 1.6 and 2.3 per cent. The real problem comes in year one.
"That is dramatically different from anything that could possibly have been foreseen in recent weeks or months in light of assurances that were given to us, from the Treasury, about smoothing over the effect of the re-basing.
"This creates an extremely serious position in terms of Scotland's finances. It means that Scotland is effectively being both squeezed and short-changed by the Treasury.
"That is being done at a time when Scottish oil revenues, over the next five years, are due to reach £55,000 million in comparison with £38,000 million over the last six years.
"The profile and the detail of these figures represents the lowest public expenditure in the UK or Scotland since the early 1980s, in terms of public spending profile."