RICHARD Leonard was branded Boris Johnson’s “chief cheerleader” by Nicola Sturgeon during an exchange at Holyrood following the publication yesterday of the annual figures on Scotland’s public finances.

The First Minister said the Scottish Labour leader should stop “extolling the virtues” of the UK Government as he asked her to work with Westminster to ensure the extension of the jobs furlough scheme and to bring forward payments to Scotland’s poorest families.

She pointed out that Scotland is the only country in the UK that is about to introduce a child payment policy, which gives lower incomes families an additional £10 per week for each child under six, adding: “If Richard Leonard started to really think about the current drivers of child poverty, he would stop being Boris Johnson’s chief cheerleader in this parliament and start standing up for this parliament getting the powers that we need.”

Polls suggest Labour may gain just 14% of the vote at next year’s election and that there is majority support for independence – including more than 40% of Labour voters.

READ MORE: Labour HQ strategists admit Scotland is a lost cause in leaked memo

Sturgeon turned on Leonard at First Ministers Questions after he raised the latest GERS figures which pointed to a current notional deficit – the difference between revenue raised and public spending – of £15 billion. He then asked her about whether the UK-funded furlough scheme showed the value of “solidarity”.

The First Minister hit back: “The furlough scheme is funded by the UK Government borrowing money. The reason why it borrows money for us is because we do not have the powers here to do it ourselves.

“I say that Richard Leonard should use his imagination, and imagine that Scotland was independent right now.

“He would not have to ask me to plead with a UK Government to borrow more money to extend the job retention scheme; we could do it ourselves, here in Scotland, like other independent countries the world over do.”

She added: “It is probably that conclusion that has led to the situation that we have right now, in which almost half of Richard Leonard’s remaining Labour supporters – which, I grant, is a dwindling band of people – now support Scotland becoming an independent country.”

The GERS figures are regularly used by pro-Union politicians to argue that Scotland could not afford to be independent. But both the SNP and the pro-independence Scottish Greens argue that the statistics reflect how the existing constitutional arrangements curtail the country’s economic potential.

They point out that 40% of the spending ascribed to Scotland is in reserved areas and is not actually spent by the Scottish Government but is a share of UK spending – for instance on defence and nuclear weapons – allocated to it.

The First Minister told Leonard that under independence Scotland would be able to fund its own furlough schemes for workers by using new borrowing powers – which the UK Government has refused to give to the devolved Scottish Government.

She also underlined that under independence, Scotland would not be facing “the threat” of a No-Deal Brexit at the end of this year as she went on to point out that the UK deficit is forecast to be £400bn next year. “Richard Leonard is aping the Tories in using GERS, but those figures are a reflection of Scotland’s fiscal position within the United Kingdom, and not a reflection of how Scotland would fare as an independent country,” she said.

“Talking about deficits, I note that when the UK deficit is projected next year to be almost £400bn, and at a time when UK debt has just topped £2 trillion, that is not the strongest territory for the Tories to be on, and it seems like politically suicidal territory for Labour to be on.”