NICOLA Sturgeon has said she will publish vaccine supply figures despite the UK Government previously asking that they be kept secret.

The First Minister signalled the figures will be published from next week "regardless of what they say" in a bid to increase transparency. 

It comes amid an ongoing row over the speed of Scotland's vaccine rollout.

Ms Sturgeon previously said UK ministers had a "hissy fit" over the publication of the data, and accused them of briefing "misleading figures on supply".

The Scottish Government removed its vaccine rollout plan from its website earlier this month.

The UK Government had raised concerns the document contained sensitive details of how many doses the UK is receiving.

A source was quoted as saying: "The reason we didn't want to publish these figures was because everyone in the world wants these vaccines.

"If other countries see how much we are getting, they are likely to put pressure on the drug firms to give them some of our allocation."

Scottish Conservative Holyrood leader Ruth Davidson said 500,000 doses of vaccine are sitting in storage while GPs continue to raise concerns that the SNP is not delivering supplies to them quickly enough.

Speaking during First Minister's Questions, she said the Scottish Government has had around one million vaccines available for use since Tuesday. 

She said "GP after GP" have expressed frustrations over supply issues, "all of which the First Minister continues to brush off". 

She added: "They just want it sorted out. When will she do it?"

Ms Sturgeon said she wasn't brushing off any of the concerns.

She added: "I think Ruth Davidson might have more of a point here if we were way off meeting the targets to get through all of these population groups, but we're not. 

"If anything, we are on track to exceed those targets in terms of the vaccine quantity and the numbers that we are vaccinating in each category. 

"In terms of supply, I'm not going to go into detail about what we covered last week about us publishing the expected supply, the UK Government demanding that we took that out of the public domain, but being quite happy to brief these figures through spin to the media. 

"So I've said to my officials actually, regardless of what they say, I think we'll just go back to publishing the actual supply figures from next week so that we all have transparency around that."

Ms Sturgeon said "way more than half" of the doses sent to Scotland so far "are already in the arms of people, and the others will be going into the arms of people over the course of the coming days". 

She added: "This allocation we've got – we've got to plan for how we use that to allow us to vaccinate all of the groups that we have prioritised within the timescales that we have set."

The First Minister previously said Scotland had prioritised vaccinating older care home residents.

But Ms Davidson said GPs had labelled this a "red herring". 

Speaking after FMQs, she said: “Vaccinations this week are lower than last week, and Sunday was the lowest daily total on record.

“When mass vaccination centres open soon, the pace will undoubtedly pick up, but that won’t solve the ongoing problem that supplies are not reaching GPs quickly enough.

“The SNP Government has around 500,000 doses of the vaccine sitting in storage, ready for next day delivery. GPs are bluntly telling us there’s a bottleneck in the SNP’s supply chain.

“It’s genuinely baffling that the First Minister won’t let GPs cut out the middleman and order it directly.

“If the SNP can order it next day delivery, why are GPs waiting weeks to get the supplies they need?”