FIRST MINISTER John Swinney has denied that Scotland would face austerity if it went it alone.

The SNP leader defended his party’s pursuit of independence on BBC television’s Panorama programme, which will interview each political party leader in turn over the coming weeks.

Having spent the last week citing claims by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that Labour and Tories were part of a “conspiracy of silence” over a £18 billion gap in UK finances over the next parliament, Mr Swinney was challenged on the think tank’s view — expressed by director David Phillips at the last Holyrood election — that a Scottish state would be forced to administer austerity and “cut its cloth to fit the size of its own purse.”

He said: “No, I don’t accept that.”

Referring to his period in charge of Scotland’s finances, which saw more than 20,000 council jobs axed amid swingeing cuts to public services, he added: “I think anyone that looks at my track record, I was 10 years the finance minister of Scotland, and I ran a balanced budget.

“I knew how to control money. I knew how to raise revenue. I knew how to make sure we lived within our means.”