Party leaders have clashed over the 50p tax rate in the last First Minister’s Questions before the Holyrood election.

On Tuesday, Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that she would not raise the top rate of tax from 45p to 50p once it is devolved in April 2017. Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale accused her of failing to deliver on her anti-austerity message.

Dugdale said: "This is the First Minister who made her name as the anti-austerity champion. She went down to England and said she would stand up to George Osborne's tax cuts.

"Yet the minute she gets the powers back home, the first minister chooses not to act."

The First Minister however said that although it is "politically easy" to raise taxes on the rich she would not be doing so as her economic analysis says that it would harm the economy.

Sturgeon said: "Doing it in the face of analysis that says that right now it could actually reduce the amount of money we have to invest in our National Health Service and our public services would not be radical, it would be reckless. It would not be daring, it would be daft.

"So we will not do it straight away. Instead we will continue to consider it in light of our experience and analysis, and in the meantime we will put forward fair, reasonable and progressive tax proposals.

"We will ask the better off in our society to shoulder a bit more of the burden, and over the life of the next parliament our proposals, local and national, will raise an additional £2bn of revenue we can invest in our National Health Service, in our public services and in mitigating the impact of Tory austerity."

The Scottish Government however are committed to not changing the threshold of the 40p rate after the Chancellor pledged to do so in his budget. This would mean workers who qualify for this rate would pay more tax in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Nicola Sturgeon was also pressed at First Minister’s Questions on her party’s “named person” legislation by the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. Davidson called the legislation “sweeping” and “unpopular”.

Davidson asked: "Named person legislation is so sweeping and now so unpopular that it is no wonder that the First Minister is trying to spin her way out of it.

"But isn't it dishonest to suggest that a parent choosing not to engage with a named person is the same thing as being able to stop their child having one imposed in the first place?"

Sturgeon defended the proposals and insisted that it is not an obligation.

She said: "The fact is children and parents are not legally obliged to use the named person service or take up any of the advice or help that is offered to them, but it will be available to them if they need it at any point in the future."

The Scottish Parliament is now dissolved until May's Holyrood election when it will reconvene when a new government is formed.