Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross has accused Nicola Sturgeon of “insulting” his party’s voters with her comments, prompting the Scottish secretary Alister Jack to say he was “absolutely right to call it out”.

The First Minister was criticised over nature of her attack but says she was referring to Conservative policies of the party.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross asked Alister Jack: “Does the secretary of state agree with me that language is also really important and when the First Minster said that she detests the Tories – and the cheers coming from the SNP – she is insulting hundreds and thousands of Scottish Conservative voters when she should be representing the whole of Scotland as First Minister?”

Mr Jack replied: “Of course I agree with (him).

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack during the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Picture date: Wednesday October 5, 2022.

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“Language is terribly important in politics, we saw the desperate death of David Amess and others before him, and you cannot incite people using words like detest, which as you’ll see in the dictionary – the other word is hate – and the irony is, the Scottish Government bring forward a hate bill and yet we have language like detest, you’re absolutely right to call it out.”

Jack also accused the SNP of wanting to destroy devolution after ministers were warned about taking powers away from Scotland’s devolved government.

SNP MP Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) told the Commons: “The vast majority of people in Scotland support the continued existence of the Scottish Government.

“Despite this, the settled will of the Scottish people for greater autonomy and self rule, some senior Conservatives are becoming even louder in their calls for UK Government to claw back powers from the devolved assemblies, the Secretary of State among them.

“Can the Secretary of State commit today before this House that the UK Government will not under any circumstances attempt to revoke powers that have been devolved to Scottish Government?”

Scotland Secretary Alister Jack replied: “I absolutely can. In fact, since we left the European Union we have given more powers to the Scottish Parliament.

“Let’s be clear, we are the party who are strengthening devolution … the SNP, the party opposite, want to destroy devolution.”

Douglas Ross accuses Nicola Sturgeon of “insulting” voters as Alister Jack accuses SNP of wanting to destroy devolution