The SNP has turned Scotland into a “stagnation nation” of failing services and high taxes, the deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives has told her party conference.

Meghan Gallacher said that 17 years of the SNP being in power the country’s future was now “on the line” at the coming general election.

The Central Scotland MSP claimed a decline in education and left children leaving primary “not being able to read and write”.

She also claimed that because of the Scottish Greens sharing power with the SNP, pupils were “force-fed gender ideology and asked intrusive questions about sex and relationships”.

Businesses also struggled to stay open because the Nationalists had made Scotland “the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom”, she added.

The Tories, she said, offered “something different” to voters schools, health, and the economy. 

Ms Gallacher told delegates at the P&J Live in Aberdeen: “The future of Scotland is on the line. Under the SNP, we are a stagnation nation.

“Seventeen years with a nationalist government has left Scotland in a rut. 

“Whether it is our education system, where children are leaving primary school not being able to read and write.

“Businesses who struggle to keep their doors open because the SNP have made Scotland the highest tax part of the United Kingdom,

“Our healthcare system, where you will struggle get a face-to-face appointment with your GP,

“Or our justice system, where the perpetrator of a crime is favoured over the victim.

“The fact is, the SNP has no idea how to fix these problems – they have simply run out of ideas.”

Ms Gallacher also attacked the SNP’s partners in Government.

She suggested that if the Greens stayed in government “our present will be a misery and the next generation of Scots will be pushed all the wrong values”.

She said: “In our schools, children will be force-fed gender ideology and asked intrusive questions about sex and relationships, when kids should just be left to be kids.

“And aspiration and hard work will be taxed to the point where it's just not worth anything anymore.

“This is not a future I want for my daughter. And the Scottish Conservatives will fight tooth and nail to stop dangerous green ideologies from entering our schools and workplaces.”

She urged First Minister Humza Yousaf to call time on the powersharing deal, saying: “The Bute House Agreement, the nationalist coalition between the Greens and the SNP, needs ripped up.

“The Greens need to be sent back to the extreme fringes of our politics where they belong.”