Ruth Davidson: Nicola Sturgeon can act to remove rape clause

She said Ms Sturgeon could use new Holyrood powers over benefits to offset the policy if she didn’t like it, and the First Minister would be guilty of “gross hypocrisy” if she failed to do so.

The SNP said it showed Ms Davidson was now “completely isolated and desperate in her attempts to defend the vile rape clause”.

The row concerns new Tory welfare changes which limit child tax credits to two children per family - unless a woman can show a third or subsequent child was the result of rape.

The “rape clause” was first exposed by SNP MP Alison Thewliss, who campaigned to scrap it, but it finally came into effect last week.

After Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Ms Sturgeon demanded to know Ms Davidson’s position on the policy, a Scottish Tory spokesman issued a defence of the change, but that only led to accusations Ms Davidson was “hiding” and more calls for her to speak out.

“Statement released by my spokesman on child tax credits represents my view,” she finally Tweeted on Wednesday.

However with no sign of the row abating, and protests planned against the clause in Glasgow’s George Square, Ms Davidson on Thursday tried to get back on the front foot.

After her top spindoctor, who had been on leave for Easter, returned to Holyrood to help handle the crisis, Ms Davidson said it was up to the policy’s critics to say what they would do instead.

Describing work on the policy as “on-going”, she said: "The SNP has said it opposes the two-child policy on tax credits, so it now has a choice to make.

“At Holyrood, we now have the power to create new benefits. The Scottish Government could, if it wanted, propose a new benefit to provide funding for families with more than two children.

"However, if Nicola Sturgeon simply wants to use this to complain about the policies of the UK Government... then she leaves herself open to the charge of gross hypocrisy."

Ms Thewliss said it took a “special kind of twisted logic” for Ms Davidson to urge Holyrood to protect vulnerable women from the “vindictive policies” of her fellow Tories at Westminster.

She said: “Ms Davidson fails to mention that people in Scotland already pay our taxes to the UK Government for a social security system that should be fair and there when we need it.

“This policy is unfair everywhere - and should be scrapped across the whole of the UK.

"Two women are in charge of the Tory party in Scotland and Westminster - neither will admit that they are just wrong, that imposing a cap on children and requiring women on low incomes to prove they were raped to get child tax credit is simply barbaric.

“The last two weeks have been a watershed moment for the Tories – they have abandoned all semblance of a moral compass.”

Ms Dugdale also wrote to Ms Davidson, pointing out she had often diverged from the party line in the past, and asking why she was still defending the “appalling” and “shameful” clause.

She wrote: “You are asking women who have been raped to fill in an eight-page form to claim money they need to help feed and clothe their child – just because he or she is their third baby.

“You are asking traumatised women who have in all likelihood never reported the rape – especially if the perpetrator was their husband – to state that their child was the result of a criminal act or that child gets no tax credit support.

“This is, without doubt, one of the cruellest policies a Tory government has ever implemented.”

Visiting Edinburgh, UK LibDem leader Tim Farron added: “I'm disappointed in Ruth. Either she isn't the decent person I suspected she might be, or she's really quite weak and the Scottish party is being run by a Conservative Government at Westminster and they take no notice of Ruth Davidson.

"That's why she needs to stand up to Theresa May. If she believes Theresa May is wrong she needs to say so and if she can't persuade her quietly she needs to object noisily."