The "dead hand of the Scotland Office" has been blamed for a decision by UK ministers to block any attempt north of the border to enact legislation banning airguns.

The "dead hand of the Scotland Office" was yesterday blamed for a decision by UK ministers to block any attempt north of the border to bring in legislation to ban airguns.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the veto left Labour's approach to devolution "threadbare and confused". The minister said his Westminster counterpart Jack Straw had given sympathetic consideration at a meeting in July to the possibility of Scotland going it alone in toughening the firearms regulations.

But now the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has vetoed this, claiming that any variation of the laws between Scotland and England would be "confusing and potentially damaging".

Mr MacAskill said yesterday: "I am extremely disappointed that the Westminster Government has not recognised that Scotland needs responsibility for firearms legislation to deal with this extremely serious problem in Scotland, particularly air weapon crime.

"There is no doubt that when I met Jack Straw in July he was very sympathetic to the issue, as indeed he was on the important point that any prisoner transfer agreement with Libya must abide by the wishes of the Scottish Government.

"However, I detect the dead hand of the Scotland Office behind this. With the Scotland Office dogmatically against any further form of devolution - they have even talked about clawing powers back - not only are they ignoring the serious problem of air weapon crime in Scotland, they are leaving the Labour Party's commitment to further devolution threadbare and confused."

The Home Secretary, in her letter to Mr MacAskill, states: "I do not believe it would be sensible to devolve responsibility in the way you suggest.

"I think it would be confusing and potentially damaging to create a situation in which the entire body of firearms law in Scotland could ultimately differ markedly from that in England and Wales.

"There is no impediment to cross-border movement and it would be very difficult to enforce separate regimes and to prevent organised criminals from exploiting differences."

Holyrood ministers would like to see the Scotland Act opened up to have firearms legislation removed from the the list of subjects reserved to Westminster, but given the seriousness of airgun crime in Scotland they would settle for a one-off deal on that issue.

More than 1000 Scots have been injured by airguns in the past eight years and there have been three deaths. One, of Easterhouse toddler Andrew Morton two years ago, led to a petition with more than 11,000 signatures being submitted to MSPs demanding that airguns be outlawed.

The convener of Solidarity, Tommy Sheridan, yesterday called on the SNP government to defy Whitehall and proceed with its own Holyrood bill banning airguns, challenging MPs to veto that.

He said: "I am enraged that Labour at Westminster should try to dictate to Scotland how we protect our communities. Two children and one adult have died recently and thousands more have been injured by airguns.

"When I was an MSP I introduced a bill to ban airguns and commissioned an opinion poll from System 3 that showed over 80% of Scots favour a ban. I believe the SNP should defy the Westminster ban and introduce a bill in parliament and let Labour try to veto this. The people of Scotland will back the Scottish Government in defying this disgraceful London ban."