SCOTLAND should be excluded entirely from the Tory government’s crackdown on trade union rights, the fair work secretary said yesterday.

Roseanna Cunningham told the SNP conference in Aberdeen her party and government would fight “every single part” of the Trade Union Bill going through the Commons, which would raise the bar for strike action, curb union funding and legalise 'scab' labour.

In a conference first, Grahame Smith, the general secretary of the STUC, also addressed the meeting, seconding a motion vehemently condemning the Bill.

He described Nicola Sturgeon as “a tremendous asset to our country” and received a standing ovation from delegates.

Cunningham said: “I have looked at the Bill really carefully and given the extent of the risk to us around the future use of this legislation, and abuse which may arise, the only solution I can see is to ask that Scotland is excluded from the entire Bill.

"It is the only way in which we would be able maintain the integrity of our more progressive approach of working in partnership with trade unions.

"So we are absolutely 100 per cent against this Bill and we want Scotland to be out of it."

Smith said that by imposing new thresholds on turnout and support for strikes, the Bill would restrict workers’ ability to withdraw their labour.

It was a “vindictive” attack on “fundamental human rights and civil liberties”, he said.

The Tory government insists that, because employment law is reserved, there is no need for MSPs to give their consent to the legislation.

However union leaders and SNP ministers believe that because the law affects workers in devolved public services, it does need MSPs’ consent.

Smith said: “The provisions of this bill intrude on devolved responsibilities to such an extent that not one clause should be applied to Scotland without the consent of the Scottish parliament, a consent that I am confident would not be forthcoming.”

Scottish Government sources said they would like to hold a vote on the issue at Holyrood, but Westminster is stubbornly refusing to concede any devolved issues are involved.

The Tories also know that if they allowed Holyrood a vote on the Bill, MSPs would reject it, prompting a constitutional crisis.

In her fraternal address to conference, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood also vowed to oppose the legislation in Wales, saying the the right to take industrial action “is an inalienable right and we will not allow the Tories to take it away”.

At a fringe event earlier, Calum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, warned the Bill could lead to a breakdown in relations between the police and workers of a kind last seen during the miners’ strike 30 years ago.

Officers could have to monitor social media to see what strike organisers were saying, and enforce new rules many union leaders have already vowed to defy, he warned.

He said: “The Trade Union Bill has massive implications for policing in Scotland.

“We don’t have the police officers or support staff with the capacity to sit vetting Tweets.

“We certainly don't want to get into a situation where organisers of strikes and pickets have to go around wearing armbands - I think that's one step removed from having them wear a bell round their neck and to go up and down the streets shouting 'unclean'.

"All of these things have implications to the police, and risk doing nothing except taking police and wider public sector staff relations to the place they were under Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s. We certainly don't want to see that kind of thing happening in Scotland."

Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said the Bill could put an unreasonable burden on police.

“These are issues I don’t think have been thought through by the UK government. The Scottish Police Federation have raised a very valid issue for the implications in Scotland.”