Scottish government runs £15bn budget deficit paid for by English taxpayers

Scotland's budget deficit has jumped to £15bn after North Sea oil revenues dropped 97%.

The SNP's economic plans all rest on Scotland investing tax revenues from North Sea oil but whilst just a couple of years ago the Scottish government could expect to lay claim to as much as £10bn in revenues, it fell to just £60m last year thanks to a crash in oil prices and a slow down in production.

Luckily for Nicola Sturgeon she doesn't have to worry about inconvenient things like budget deficits because Scotland's heavily inflated share of public spending isn't linked to the amount of tax they raise. Scotland is guaranteed a subsidy every year under the Barnett Formula which is currently a 16% premium on the UK average. This is a little misleading though because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all receive more money than they pay in to the Treasury which bumps up the average. The Scottish subsidy is a 19% premium on average spending in England and a whopping 28% premium on public spending in the east of England euroregion which is the poorest funded part of the UK.

ConDem's agree to EU scrutiny of UK budget

Three months ago to the day, EU insists on vetting UK budget before parliament ...

Mr Cameron will further set the tone of the relationship today when he tells the former Belgian Prime Minister that Britain will refuse to send its Budget plans to Brussels before being announced in Parliament.

- The Times, 7th June 2010

EU finance ministers have moved closer to agreeing to allow other governments to study their annual budgets before they are seen by national parliaments.

The UK government said it would reject this plan, but EU officials said a compromise had been worked out.

- BBC, 8th June 2010

The budget will be presented to Parliament first. There is no question of anyone other than MPs seeing it first. Once the Chancellor has presented it to Parliament, it is of course publicly available.

- Mark Hoban MP, Financial Secretary, HM Treasury, 8th June 2010

Starting next year, the 27 European Union members will have to submit their proposed budgets to the EU in advance, so that Brussels can scrutinize their plans before they take effect.

- Deutsche Welle, 7th September 2010

Just to clarify: the EU, which hasn't had its own budget signed off for 13 years in a row by its own internal auditors, will scrutinise and revise the budgets of national governments.

Sadly, the previous Liebour government repealed the death penalty for Treason.  You can read the full story on how the deceitful ConDem coalition have agreed to illegally submit the UK budget to the European Empire before submitting it to Parliament here.