SNP enterprise spokesman Jim Mather has called for an independent Office of National Statistics for Scotland.

Mather said this would ensure Scots are no longer subjected to "claptrap data" designed to enhance the feel good factor and the electability of Labour.

"Every measure produced by the government, from economic growth, to unemployment, to hospital waiting times is being massaged to produce rosier pictures than real people experience." Mather said an independent ONS could produce a comprehensive range of statistics, "something we patently don't have at present".

"Deluding people with dodgy data will improve nothing. It will only worsen things for most people and keep the perpetrators in office."