THE Scottish Government has been urged to hold an authoritative legal referendum on the future of Scotland within the UK which avoids a constitutional stalemate, after Alex Salmond called for the poll in the autumn of 2014.

There was widespread reaction to the First Minister's announcement last night, after Scottish Secretary Michael Moore had earlier told MPs that SNP ministers do not have the constitutional power to hold a vote on the break-up of the union while announcing a public consultation on staging a referendum.

Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie said that Alex Salmond's decision to forge ahead with an advisory referendum "doesn't address the issue of ensuring the Scottish people decide the outcome, not the courts".

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the SNP were setting up a "roadblock" to independence while the Government was offering a "positive and constructive approach" to allow the Scottish people the ability to hold "a fair, legal and decisive referendum".

"It is simply staggering that Alex Salmond, whose raison d'être is independence, is setting himself up to be the roadblock to a real referendum," she said.

"His supporters must be wondering why he is rejecting something he has been campaigning for all his political life."

She added: "We recognise the election result has given the SNP a mandate to hold a referendum, but it has to be one which cannot be challenged. Our constitutional future has to be decided by the Scottish people, not the Scottish courts.

"Scotland has two governments and we are keen to work with the SNP to ensure a vote is held that is legally sound."

Grahame Smith, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), welcomed Mr Moore's move, saying it "potentially avoids protracted and divisive uncertainty on issues of legal competence which would have been to the detriment of the real debate".

He added: "Once it is agreed that the power to hold a binding referendum lies with the Scottish Parliament, an independent body in Scotland should be tasked with the responsibility of making recommendations on the process and conduct of the referendum, including considering whether a credible third option has emerged and whether, and in what way, that additional option might be put to the Scottish people."

But Canon Kenyon Wright, one of the architects of devolution, has slapped down the Prime Minister's intervention on the referendum, saying in a letter to David Cameron that the "superficial nature" of the referendum proposals "simply proves that you have little understanding either of Scotland's constitutional tradition and history, or of the mood of the people of Scotland".

The convener of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which paved the way for Holyrood, said: "We hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs."

He added: "It is clear and unambiguous, and reflects a principle deep in our history, that the people, not the crown in parliament, are sovereign."

In the Lords, former Labour first minister Lord McConnell joined peers on all sides of the House in welcoming the Government's stance, but warned ministers against "falling into a Nationalist trap".

Referring to a remark once used by Business Secretary Vince Cable about former prime minister Gordon Brown, the Labour peer said: "The Nationalists will wish to portray the Prime Minister – if I can amend a phrase used elsewhere in recent years – as going from being Mr Bean in relation to Scotland to being Stalin in relation to Scotland."

Tory former Scotland secretary Lord Forsyth asked: "Given that the SNP manifesto, for which they got 45% of the vote, says 'we will give Scots the opportunity to decide our nation's future in an independence referendum', why is this initiative by the Government so unpopular with the Scottish Nationalists?"

Liberal Democrat Lord Steel of Aikwood, a former presiding officer in the Scottish Parliament, said that at last year's elections in Scotland SNP leaflets did not urge people to vote for the party to get independence, and it was a "complete nonsense" to claim they had a mandate on the issue.