SCOTLAND is set for a £70 billion cash injection under Labour, John McDonnell said yesterday.

Speaking at the close of Scottish Labour conference, the shadow chancellor promised a “permanent and irreversible shift in power back to the people.”

He said Scotland would receive £30bn under the Barnett formula — the mechanism by which government spending is allocated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — if Labour’s 2017 general election plans were maintained over 10 years.

There would also be £20bn in capital investment from Labour’s national transformation fund and £20bn would be up for grabs north of the border from Labour’s UK national investment bank.

He said a Labour government in Westminster would get to work “investing in small and medium-sized businesses, environmentally transformative projects, supporting industrial strategy and rebalancing Britain’s economy away from London and the south-east.”

“This could mean an additional £20bn for the Scottish economy over 10 years,” he added.

“Compare that, by the way, with the measly £340 million of initial capital budgeted by the SNP for their so-called Scottish Investment Bank.”

But he said a socialist society would be “about more than redistribution.”

He told delegates: “When we return to power we will have to fundamentally change the whole economic basis of our society.

“Over the past 40 years our industrial base has been dismantled, key public industries sold off, working-class communities neglected.

“Scotland’s industries disappearing through not just neglect but deliberate attempts by Conservative governments to smash the strongholds of the labour movement.

“We will need to fundamentally reorganise our society collectively.”