THE contenders for the Scottish Labour leadership have clashed while discussing the UK party’s position on Tory welfare cuts in a TV leadership debate.

Kezia Dugdale and Ken Macintosh said they would have voted against the Welfare Bill at Westminster when the Labour leadership provoked a rebellion by telling its MPs to abstain last week.

Ms Dugdale, a Lothians MSP, said Labour needed to “hit the reset button” and that she was “angry” to see the majority of her party’s MPs sit on the fence. She spent a large chunk of her opening statement addressing the issue in the BBC programme last night.

However Mr Macintosh, who came second when he stood for the leadership in 2011 and won the ballot among party members, accused frontrunner Ms Dugdale of changing her position.

Last week, Ms Dugdale was quoted in the press, saying that she would have obeyed the party whip and abstained, Mr Macintosh quickly pointed out.

She reacted strongly to the suggestion that she had performed a u-turn. “Ken misrepresents my position on welfare reform,” she said. “I was clear on Twitter well in advance of any vote in the House of Commons that I felt those tax cuts needed to be opposed... there’s no question on my position on that, the question is what are we going to do about it.”

Mr Macintosh, the MSP for Eastwood, hit back, saying: “The Daily Record, which is Kezia’s own paper, she has a column in it, quoted her as saying abstain, we may well clarify that later.”

The candidates were taking part in the debate, the week after ballot papers were sent out to party members and supporters.

For the first time, the Scottish Labour leadership will be decided under a one-member, one-vote system, following reforms pushed through by a departing Jim Murphy.

Both rejected calls for the party north of the border to break away from UK Labour, but insisted they would not be at the beck and call of party leaders in London.

Ms Dugdale said: "I'm not going to seek permission to speak - there's that old saying it's much easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission."

They also insisted they would work with the SNP. Mr Macintosh has stood on a platform of offering a more constructive opposition to the nationalists.

He said: "I don't want to be constantly opposing or obsessed with the SNP and constantly opposing every single thing they do. If the SNP are adopting Labour policies, if they're anti austerity and we're anti austerity we should work together.”

For the first time, the Scottish Labour leadership will be decided under a one-member, one-vote system, following reforms pushed through by a departing Jim Murphy.

Both rejected calls for the party north of the border to break away from UK Labour, but insisted they would not be at the beck and call of party leaders in London.

Ms Dugdale said: "I'm not going to seek permission to speak - there's that old saying it's much easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission."

They also insisted they would work with the SNP. Mr Macintosh has stood on a platform of offering a more constructive opposition to the nationalists.

He said: "I don't want to be constantly opposing or obsessed with the SNP and constantly opposing every single thing they do. If the SNP are adopting Labour policies, if they're anti austerity and we're anti austerity we should work together.”