JOHN Swinney has accused Labour of "flip-flopping" over its plans to fund the health service over the next five years.

The SNP's campaign chief called on Kezia Dugdale to explain her claim that Labour's spending plans matched his own party's.

He said the Scots Labour leader's comments contradicted her own manifesto, published last week, which committed the party to a "real terms increase" in health funding.

Labour dismissed the charge, which came as the SNP faced questions about its own spending plans for education.

Read more: SNP urged to guarantee education budget safeguard

The row centres on day to day health spending, which excludes major building programmes.

The SNP has pledged to increase spending by £500million over and above inflation, taking the budget to £14.1billion by 2021/22.

Labour's manifesto promises to "increase NHS spending in real terms" - in other words, to ensure an above-inflation rise in the budget.

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The party declined to put a figure on the health budget by 2021 under its plans, but insisted it would pass on Barnett consequentials, or Scotland's share of rising NHS spending in England, in full.

The SNP said that would only take spending to £13.9billion.

The row erupted during Sunday's final televised election debate, when Ms Dugdale was pressed on the issue by Nicola Sturgeon.

During angry exchanges, the Scottish Labour leader said: "Our spending plans for the NHS are the same as the SNP's."

Ms Sturgeon hit back: "No they're not."

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Mr Swinney said: "Kezia Dugdale needs to urgently explain why her manifesto said one thing on NHS spending and, just a few days later, she claimed it said something else.

"Labour are in the absurd position of offering the lowest NHS spending of any party in this election but pretending that their position is the same of ours."

His claims are backed by an analysis of the manifestos by economist John McLaren, for the grassroots online campaign group 38 Degrees.

He questioned the SNP's claim to be putting an extra £2billion into health, saying the true figure was nearer £1.75billion, but said the party's pledge "would appear to be the strongest".

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He said it was closely followed by Tory and LibDem plans, while Labour's was "less clear".

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "If the SNP want to make the last few days of this election a debate about who will spend more on public services, we say: Bring it on.

"The SNP are plain wrong.

"When we set out our NHS policy at party conference we explicitly released our plans to allocate Barnett consequentials to the NHS."

The spokesman added: "The SNP say we aren't matching their pledge to spend an additional £2 billion on the NHS.

"They're wrong again, our manifesto commits to new spending on the NHS costing £2billion.

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"We can promise this because we have promised to increase overall spending on public services.

"The SNP cannot afford their promises because they have to make £3billion of extra cuts."

Meanwhile, Labour challenged the SNP over spending commitments for education, an area the First Minister has said will be her priority over the next five years if her party is re-elected to Government.

Yesterday, Ms Sturgeon claimed that her party was “proposing an increase in the education budget of three quarters of a billion pounds over the next parliament.”

In its manifesto, the SNP said £750 million would be spent on its drive to close the attainment gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds. However, the cash has been earmarked for schools and nurseries rather than the education budget as a whole.

Scottish Labour said a commitment to protect the education budget in real terms is absent from the SNP’s manifesto, with the party’s education spokesman Iain Gray saying the party had repeatedly failed to clarify its spending plans in recent weeks.

Mr Gray added: “Labour has made a clear commitment – we’ll use the new powers of the Scottish Parliament to tax the richest 1 one per cent so we can invest in schools, and stop the cuts to public services. We will protect the education budget in real terms.

“If Nicola Sturgeon goes on the media in the morning to say education was her ‘defining mission of her next government’ but in the afternoon cannot say that she would protect education in real terms, then it is clear that the SNP cannot be trusted on education.”

An SNP spokesman said: “The increase in spending on schools and nurseries that we propose of £750 million is significantly more than a real-terms increase. For the education budget as a whole, by the end of the Parliament the budget will be larger in real terms.”