SCOTLAND’S Yes and No campaigns clashed over inequality yesterday on the fringes of the teaching union EIS’s annual general meeting.

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, representing No campaign Better Together, said the problem of poverty was “not unique to Scotland. Independence won’t magically make it better.”

The Scottish government had been awarded control of education policy more than a decade ago, he said, yet the gap in academic performance between rich and poor remained “a disgrace.”

But Yes Scotland campaigner Dennis Canavan said Scottish Labour and SNP governments' records were irrelevant.

The sovereignty accorded under independence would allow a future government to adopt more radical socialist policies, claimed the former Labour MSP.

Child Poverty Action Group policy officer Hannah McCulloch said neither result represented a silver bullet to the problem of one in five children across Scotland being in poverty.

Only a progressive social security system, secure employment and a guaranteed living wage could begin to address the crisis, she said.