Nicola Sturgeon said England was trailing Scotland in tackling coronavirus.

The First Minister was responding to a question that noted shops were already open in England and the UK Government was opening up the economy in England faster than the Scottish Government was in Scotland.

On a day when the First Minister announced no deaths registered for the first time on a weekday since lockdown began, she said that in terms of driving down coronavirus Scotland was doing better than was the case south of the border.

Ms Sturgeon said: “England is lagging behind Scotland in suppressing this virus. Deaths are lower, and cases are lower, in Scotland than in England.

Ms Sturgeon said the decisions taken on the economy were building a lasting sustainable recovery.

She said that is “in the long term interest of the economy and the long term interest on the country.”

The latest UK figures showed there had been 149 deaths across the UK on the same day as none were registered in Scotland.

In total there has been 38,706 deaths in England, the comparable number in Scotland is 2840.

Ms Sturgeon had earlier announced there was 17 new cases in Scotland in the last 24 hours.

There was a reduction of three in the number of patients in hospital and a decrease of one in those in intensive care where there was 17 across Scotland.