The SNP has been accused of offering women "empty chat-up lines" to try to win support for independence.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran will also warn that women had many unanswered questions, including how leaving the UK would help bridge the gender pay gap.

But the SNP said women were being hardest hit by the current Coalition Government's welfare reforms.

Ms Curran will make her comments in a speech to party activists at Glasgow Kelvin College's Easterhouse campus.

She will accuse the SNP of making a cynical offer on childcare in its recent White Paper on independence.

"We're being viewed as political pawns in the SNP's game for independence, rather than people who have a decision to make," she will say. "Instead of a vision for changing women's lives, we have a plan to win women's votes. The SNP made an offer on childcare that they could achieve now with the powers they already have.

"(But) when Nicola Sturgeon was asked why she wouldn't just get on with it, she said it was because some of the gains would go to the UK Treasury."

Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP work and pensions spokeswoman at Westminster, said: "Margaret Curran is absolutely right that we need to engage woman across Scotland in the referendum debate, and the huge gain of a Yes vote is that the Scottish Parliament will take far better decisions than Westminster on the economy, welfare and social policy."