Controversial changes to housing benefit could be abolished within months of Scotland leaving the UK, the First Minister has said.
Alex Salmond pledged if the SNP was voted in as the first government in an independent Scotland, the so-called “bedroom tax” would be axed within a year.
“Labour has no plans to abolish or reverse the bedroom tax,” Mr Salmond said.
“In contrast, this government will abolish the bedroom tax if we are elected as the first government of an independent Scotland. Not only will we abolish it, we will do it in the first year of that independent Scotland.”
He made the commitment after Labour leader Johann Lamont hit out at proposals for the existing welfare system to be continued for a period if Scotland left the UK.
An expert group, established by the Scottish Government, recommended the current system for administering pensions and benefits should continue for a transitional period.
But Ms Lamont insisted the SNP’s plans were “neither independence or credible”.
She argued retaining the welfare system, together with plans to keep the pound as the currency of an independent Scotland, would “hinge on the goodwill of a country we would just have made a foreign one by voting to leave it”.
Ms Lamont added: “The truth is that the UK would control our currency, our economy and now our pensions.”
She questioned if the First Minister had “lost his mojo on independence” as she suggested that “SNP backbenchers might want to set up a breakaway group SNP for Independence”.
She added that Mr Salmond “must have another plan he isn’t telling us, because the current plan is neither independence or credible”.
The Labour leader pressed Mr Salmond on the key issue of welfare at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament.
During noisy clashes, she told him: “Independent experts have said it is impossible to get rid of the bedroom tax on day one of independence if you are going to continue with the welfare position.
But the SNP leader claimed: “Not only will independence free us from the bedroom tax imposed by the Tory party, it will free us from Ed Balls’ plans to pay people in Scotland less benefits than wealthy parts of England.”