THE SNP has come under fresh attack over its demand for devo max, after an independent analysis warned almost 140,000 jobs could be lost as the Holyrood government struggled to balance the books.
The Scottish Parliament's politically neutral information centre, SPICe, used the government's own economic model to show that spending cuts of £6.5billion would result in 138,000 jobs losses.
The figure was seized upon by Scottish Labour, whose deputy leader Kezia Dugdale claimed the SNP's plan for full fiscal autonomy would result in "austerity on a scale never seen before in Scotland".
Ruth Davidson, the Scots Tory leader, said devo max would lead to "chaos for Scotland and chaos for the UK".
Their warnings were dismissed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as "scaremongering".
The row, which dominated First Minister's Questions, followed the publication of the government's latest revenue and expenditure figures on Wednesday.
The report showed Scotland was £12.4billion in the red last financial year and deeper in deficit than the UK as whole.
The parliament's
calculation was based on forecasts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said the deficit would grow to twice the size of the UK', in relative terms, next year, as oil revenues plummeted.
The IFS predicted Scotland's deficit would be 8 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with 4 per cent across the UK in financial year 2015/16.
The think tank said the difference meant Scotland would have to find an extra £6.6billion to maintain present levels of spending.
The SNP has claimed a devo max Scotland would be able to borrow and grow the economy in order to plug the gap but opponents insist tax rises or spending cuts would be required, such is the scale of the deficit.
Ms Dugdale said the SNP's demand for devo max - which the party wants to press for after the General Election - was "reckless".
She said: "It means massive spending cuts over and above what we would get from the Tories winning in May.
"Huge cuts to the budget for our NHS and our schools.
"It's austerity on a scale never seen before in Scotland, it's austerity max."
Her party launched a new election poster depicting a "Barnett bombshell" of 138,000 jobs losses if access to UK funds was replaced by devo max.
Ms Davidson said income tax would have to rise by 15p if the black hole in Scotland's finances was plugged by tax rises alone.
Rejecting the attacks, Ms Sturgeon said: "People in Scotland know that I and the SNP and the Scottish Government don't propose cuts, we want to grow our economy so we can protect Scotland from Labour and Tory cuts.
"The only people proposing cuts are the Tories, the Liberals and the Labour Party.
"We know they want to impose more cuts on Scotland and the only way to stop that is to send SNP MPs to Westminster to force them into an alternative."
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