GORDON BROWN was under fire ten years ago this week, after getting his facts wrong as he defended the rules that deliver much higher spending in Scotland than in the poorer North-East.

The PM astonished MPs by claiming the infamous Barnett Formula is "based on a needs assessment".

The formula allocates increases in public spending according to population size, regardless of the relative wealth of people in Scotland, Wales and the English regions.

In the previous financial year, Scotland received £8,623 per head from the Treasury, while the North-East figure was £8,177.

Yet income per head north of the border was 95 per cent of the national average in 2006, while the average North Easterner received 81 per cent.

It was the first time a Government minister – let alone a prime minister – had attempted to defend the Barnett Formula on the grounds that it is based on need.

Fiona Hall, North-East Liberal Democrat Euro-MP, called Mr Brown's statement "astonishing".

She added: "The formula has no legal or democratic justification and my constituency has increasingly lost out due to this unfair system of funding distribution."

Elsewhere in the region, councillors were condemned for “shamefully” attempting to seek compensation to cover their early exit from the role, following a local government reorganisation.

The shake-up left councillors demanding "parachute payments" to cover their loss of earnings.

The National Association of Councillors (NAC) took legal advice over whether members can be compensated for any financial loss.

But Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "This is a shameful attempt to squeeze yet more money out of hard-pressed taxpayers.

"Being a councillor is meant to be about public service, not personal gain."

Meanwhile, plans were unveiled to create an airport business park which would bring 3,500 jobs to 250 acres of brownfield land to the south of Durham Tees Valley Airport.

The park was designed to replace the long-awaited Southside project.

Airport managing director Hugh Lang said: "Ensuring that we maximise the potential of our entire site is absolutely vital if we are to drive forward the development of the airport as a key element in the regeneration of the Tees Valley and wider North-East."

And a North-East woman who made medical history urged people to make her 21st birthday a fundraising bonanza for transplant charities.

Kaylee Davidson, from Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, made the headlines two decades earlier when she become the first child in the UK to have a successful heart transplant.

Ahead of her birthday the following month, Kaylee organised a party at Newcastle's Centre for Life dubbed the Northern Transplant Charity Ball.