SCOTLAND’S main political leaders have clashed over taxation and spending, with SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon accusing the other parties of “reviving Project Fear.”

The First Minister was questioned about SNP plans to increase Scotland’s financial powers during a third televised election debate in under a week.

Ms Sturgeon told BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme that full fiscal autonomy would take several years to implement but with new powers Scotland would start growing its economy and revenues.

She said: “This week we’ve seen the Project Fear that dominated the referendum revived by these three unionist parties, trying to talk down Scotland and assert that we’re not capable of running our own affairs.

“This is a debate about whether Scotland should take more control over our own economic decision-making. Do we take proper control over our finances or do we leave ourselves at the mercy of Westminster’s continued cuts?”

Commenting after the debate, Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran said Ms Sturgeon “must come clean on her party’s plans to borrow billions to pay for their policy of full fiscal autonomy.”