NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of failing twice as many vulnerable toddlers as the Tories after a new report warned children in Scotland are “missing out” on free childcare places.

Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie said it was “simply not enough” that just a third of two-year-olds living in poverty had free nursery places.

South of the border, the take-up rate is around 70 per cent, he said.

The Scottish Government announced in 2014 that all vulnerable two-year-olds would be eligible for free nursery places alongside three and four year olds.

At First Minister’s Questions, Mr Rennie accusing Ms Sturgeon of “failing” children.

She said she did not accept that, and the government was encouraging parents to use the free nursery provision on offer, calling free childcare “a big success story” in Scotland.

Mr Rennie said: “That is simply not good enough when this is supposed to be the Government’s most transformative infrastructure project

“In England, 70% of two-year-olds who are in poverty are receiving free nursery education, which is double the rate in Scotland. It is unbelievable that the Conservative Government is reaching more children in poverty than the SNP is.”

Ms Sturgeon said her government was “doing significantly more to expand early years education and childcare than the Government south of the border”.

Mr Rennie also cited a Save the Children report about the low take-up rate in Scotland which warned it could hamper attempts to close the poverty-related attainment gap in schools.

Mr Sturgeon said ministers would look “carefully” at the report as it worked on its planned roll-out of a doubling in free childcare hours by autumn 2020.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard criticised the Scottish Government for failing to inflation-proof the pot of money for emergency grants to the poor.

Mr Leonard said the Scottish Welfare Fund had been frozen at £33m a year since it was introduced in 2013, and was forecast to stay at that level until 2025.

He said that meant a real-terms cut of £3.5m to date doubling to £7m within six years.

He reminded Ms Sturgeon that when the fund began, she had said it showed the government was “doing everything we can for the most vulnerable across Scotland.”

He said: “At a time of rising poverty, what is the First Minister’s justification for year-on-year cuts to the Scottish welfare fund?”

Ms Sturgeon said Mr Leonard should have raised the issue as part of the annual budget process, and said the government had protected the fund in the face of UK austerity cuts.

She said: “In addition to the welfare fund, we are investing £125m this year to mitigate welfare cuts from the Tories.

“We are investing £350m in our council tax reduction scheme, £64m in discretionary housing payments to mitigate the bedroom tax that was imposed on us by the Tories, an additional £2m in our fair food fund and £1.5m in our financial health check service.

“We will continue to do that, because that is our obligation. However, the sooner this Parliament is able to attack poverty at source and to take into its hands and out of the hands of Westminster the ability to tackle the causes of the increase in poverty, the better. The sooner Richard Leonard supports that, the better it will be for families all over this country.”