Yes, Scotland does receive an unfair share of public spending. Probably

Gulp. But what about England? That’s one of the questions to be asked in the aftermath of the latest Scottish spending and revenue figures, published today. The figures do not lie. Even when North Sea oil figures are taken into account – a geographic accident that, while welcome, remains an unearned accident – England (as a whole) subsidises other parts of the United Kingdom. This is a good thing. This is the way it is supposed to be.

But – double gulp – shouldn’t Scotland be subsidising other parts of the UK too?

Identifiable spending per capita in Scotland is a bit higher than in Wales, London and north-eastern England, quite a bit lower than in Northern Ireland, and much higher than in southern and eastern England. Again, as needs to be repeated frequently, some of this spending is entirely reasonable. It costs more, per capita, to provide education, health, transport and so on in sparsely populated parts of Scotland.