SNP deputy leadership candidate Angela Constance has given her backing to calls for pro-independence parties to work together in next year's general election and put forward joint candidates.

Ms Constance conceded that such a strategy would be a "hard ask for any political party, because it demands a degree of self-sacrifice for the greater good".

But she said she believes it is what the wider Yes movement, which saw members of the SNP, Greens, Scottish Socialist Party and others campaign together in the referendum, wants to see happen.

Ms Constance, the Secretary for Training, Youth and Women's Employment, was speaking after her local SNP branch put forward a motion for the party's conference next month, calling on leaders to "initiate an election strategy, together with other pro-independence parties, groups or individuals, with a view to putting forward a single pro-independence candidate in 2015" for all Scottish seats currently held by Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats".