THE Scottish Government puts process and “stoking up grievance” with Westminster ahead of pursuing the good of the people of Scotland, Tory MPs have claimed.

The accusation was led by Stephen Kerr, the Conservative MP for Stirling, who, opening an animated Commons debate on devolution, hailed Scotland’s “powerhouse parliament,” which, he said, was David Cameron’s “proud legacy”.

But he decried how Nicola Sturgeon’s administration was sucking power away from local communities and centralising it in Edinburgh, accusing the SNP leader of a “power-grab”.

However, his arguments were decried by SNP MPs, who accused the Tories of using the debate simply to create a “stairheid rammy”.

Tommy Sheppard for the Nationalists refrained, as is customary, from congratulating Mr Kerr on bringing the debate, accusing him and his Conservative colleagues of simply engaging in “party political point-scoring and an attempt to have a go at the SNP”.

Admitting how in 1997 he campaigned against the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the Tory MP told the debate in Westminster Hall that he had since realised he had been wrong to do so.

Declaring the “zeal of a convert,” he claimed devolution had created a “better Scotland and a more confident and comfortable Union”.

But accusing the First Minister of a “power-grab” – the phrase Ms Sturgeon uses against the UK Government over its Brexit legislation – Mr Kerr said: “Decisions taken around the Cabinet table in Bute House are remote and removed from the daily lives of the people of Scotland. They often run roughshod over the views of the public in an apparent unheeding to and uncaring of the difficulties communities have.

“However, I am full of hope that that can be addressed by the simple adoption of the principles of devolution by the Scottish Nationalist Government in Edinburgh.”

The Tory backbencher said that just because Scots had their own powerhouse parliament in Edinburgh, this did not mean the parliament in London should be less of a force for good in Scotland.

“The UK Parliament is still as much a Scottish parliament as it has been since the Act of Union in 1707,” declared the MP for Stirling. “Scotland is one land with two parliaments. We deserve our voice to be heard here and we deserve our government, the UK Government to work in our interests.”

But he bemoaned how the SNP Government fomented grievance instead of fixing issues and Scotland, as a result, suffered.

“There is a clear pattern. The SNP put process and stoking up grievance ahead of the good of the people of Scotland; that’s not what the powers of the Scottish Parliament are for and that’s not what people pay their taxes for to support the Scottish Government.”

Mr Kerr added: “Scotland deserves to be governed not in conflict but in partnership.”

The SNP’s Stewart McDonald noted how the debate was supposed to be about Scottish devolution but noted how no Tory MP had argued for more powers for Holyrood. He suggested some appeared only to be intent on creating a “stairheid rammy”.

The Glasgow South MP insisted that no one would believe how Tory MPs had turned from anti-devolution caterpillars into butterflies of “devo-max-illusionism”.

Later, countering Mr Kerr’s arguments, Mr Sheppard insisted the Scottish Government and Parliament used “powers every day in every way to try and make things better for the people of Scotland but they do so within considerable legislative and financial constraints”.

He listed 10 achievements of the SNP administration, including: crime at an all-time low; free medicine; free university education; the creation of 60,000 affordable homes; mitigation of the bedroom tax and the best performing NHS anywhere in the UK.

“Compare and contrast that Scottish Government record with the record of the Tory Government here at Westminster; a Government that after just four months in office appears to be punch-drunk, a Government that is adrift on a sea of uncertainty and chaos of its own making.

“I know which government I would rather have in control of my life and that is the Scottish Government led by the SNP,” added the Edinburgh MP.