Labour has accused the Tory government of hurting the working poor after it won a crunch Commons vote on plans to cut £6bn worth of tax credits.
Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, predicted the move would would hurt the Tories electoral chances in Scotland.
Scottish leader Ruth Davidson is hoping to revive the party’s fortunes north of the border at next year’s Holyrood elections.
Mr Murray said: “In one move, the government have cut the incomes of hard working people across Scotland.
"The people who will suffer after this decision are working people, who get up every morning and do the right thing”.
He called on Ms Davidson to "justify to hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland why her party has pushed these changes through".
Hannah Bardell, the SNP's employment spokesman, said: “The SNP are vigorously opposed to these brutal welfare cuts that provide a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of families across the country.
“Austerity hasn’t worked and it is astonishing that the UK Government continues to attack low paid families ignoring the fact that their policies do little more than hit children the hardest."
Tory ministers insisted that the reforms were necessary to help cut the UK's Budget deficit.
Critics argue that the bill for tax credits, which were introduced under the last Labour government. have mushroomed in recent years.
The vote had been expected to be closer than it was.
There had even been suggestions that the Conservatives could suffer their second parliamentary defeat in as many weeks.
But the party won by 325 votes to 290 - a majority of 35.
The Tories have a working majority of 16, meaning that a significant number of Tory rebels are needed to guarantee any defeat.
In the end, however, only a couple of Conservative backbenchers voted against their own party.
As the result was announced the Justice Secretary Michael Gove was reported to have shouted “time to resign” at the new shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
Earlier Paul Johnson, the director of the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, warned that the new "living wage” promised by ministers would not compensate for the cuts.
The Liberal Democrats said that the reforms would mean that workers would lose up to 93p for every pound they earn.
“What happened to ‘making work pay'?", Lib Dem leader Tim Farron asked.
Meanwhile, Tory ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve has been elected as chairman of the powerful Commons Intelligence and Security Committee.
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