True (that the belt was mainly a Scottish phenomenon), but there were one or two exceptions to the rule: parts of Tyneside, and Walsall.
Walsall in the West Midlands was a centre of the leather industry and, presumably to support the local economy, schools there used the belt instead of the cane. However, unlike the normal practice in Scotland (and Newcastle), in Walsall boys got it on their bottoms, not on their hands.
This was also true in Gateshead, with explicit sexual discrimination: boys strapped on the backside, girls on the hand.