The SNP leader, who is pushing for a second referendum on Scottish independence before the Brexit process has been completed, sets out her bid to keep Scotland in the EU.

She says it is her aim to maintain full EU membership, although if independence was secured after the UK had left, an interim arrangement might be needed to maintain single market membership.

It sounds like the SNP's manifesto (launching on Tuesday) will look at the cap currently imposed on public sector pay.

Why did SNP MSPs vote against increasing nurses’ pay, Andrew Neil asks.

Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland has a 1% pay rise cap on public sector workers, as does England. She says it’s in place to protect jobs and limit redundancies.

She also says there have been bigger pay increases for people at the bottom of the NHS pay scale, and that pay progression has been protected.

“If you’re a nurse, you’re paid more in Scotland than you are in England,” Sturgeon says.

“You’ll end up with under £2 less on a 12 hour shift,” if you’re a registered staff nurse in England says Andrew Neil. “It’s not huge.”

The First Minister says a nurse at the lower end of the pay scale will be about £1,000 a year better off in Scotland.

She also says she doesn’t believe pay caps like the current 1% cap on public sector jobs will continue to be sustainable, and the SNP manifesto will look at that.

Andrew Neil says only one in every 12 students at Scotland’s top universities are from poor backgrounds.

Nicola Sturgeon says he is changing the parameters by focusing on “top universities”. She says poorer students are underrepresented but there is a “programme of work” in place to improve that.

Asked about cutting maintenance grants the first minister says “we have the best package of student support” in the UK. She says the SNP did raise the income threshold for qualifying for a full grant, but that grants haven’t been abolished as they have been in England.

“The SNP’s great boast is that students don’t pay tuition fees in Scotland,” Andrew Neil says.

“So why is it twice as hard for a Scottish kid from a deprived background to get to university than for an English kid from a deprived background?”

Nicola Sturgeon replies that there are record numbers of people going to university – including record numbers of people from deprived backgrounds.

She says the figures don’t reflect an important difference in the way young people in Scotland and England access higher education – namely that more people in Scotland “do higher education in further education colleges”.

Nicola Sturgeon also says she believes Scotland is the only part of the UK to have legislated to ensure fair access to higher education. There is a Widening Access Commission, funding for protected university places and a 2030 target for equal access to university places for rich and poor students.

Andrew Neil suggests the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy was closed down because its results looked bad for the SNP government. He says that two global education surveys had similarly negative results and that’s why the Scottish government pulled out of them.

“You shot the messenger,” he says.

Nicola Sturgeon replies that what he’s suggesting is “an absolute travesty”. She says moving away from the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy will improve the information the Scottish Government has on education, making it and local authorities more accountable.

Andrew Neil says there’s been no progress on improving results in reading, maths and science.

He says the PISA survey rankings saw Scotland drop 12 places in reading attainment, 13 places in maths and nine in science.

Nicola Sturgeon responds saying those statistics are two years old and predate the reforms her government has been making.

She argues the results are better than he suggests – she says more young people are leaving school with Highers and Advanced Highers, and more people are going to university.

Andrew Neil Interview
BBC presenter's series of interviews ahead of 2017 election

Image source, bbc

The interview turns to education.

Andrew Neil says standards are falling in Scottish schools and asks whether Nicola Sturgeon was paying too much attention to indyref2 to notice.

The first minister offers statistics on the narrowing attainment gap and higher numbers of poorer students leaving school with qualifications.

“That’s partly because the top 20% aren’t doing so well,” Andrew Neil says.

He says the PISA schools survey shows high achievers in Scottish schools are declining in number.

Nicola Sturgeon says it’s about quality of qualifications, not quantity. She says high achievers have improved their performance by about 9% while the bottom 20% of pupils have improved by 26%.

She says she’s been “very frank” about wanting to improve education in Scotland.

Andrew Neil says the Scottish economy grew by less than 0.5% last year, while the whole UK economy grew 2%. “That’s a terrible record,” he says.

Nicola Sturgeon counters, saying the problems faced by the oil and gas sector have a “disproportionate effect on Scotland,” and that explains the difference in performance.

She also says the UK as a whole has suffered from “the Brexit effect,” and that “Scotland is not immune” to it.

Andrew Neil says the Scottish economy is growing slower than the rest of the UK economy, and could be on the brink of recession. Does Nicola Sturgeon think she should “end the obsession with independence” and focus on improving growth in Scotland?

Nicola Sturgeon says the whole of the UK has seen growth slow, and that Scotland has also been affected by falling prices of North Sea oil and gas.

She says Scotland’s GDP has recovered from the recession more strongly than the rest of the UK, unemployment is lower and productivity has increased at a faster rate in Scotland.

Andrew Neil quotes former SNP adviser Alex Bell, saying the last ten years of SNP government in Scotland has been a “lost decade.”

Nicola Sturgeon says she does not “accept the facts and figures bear out that assessment.”

She says the SNP has increased health budgets and that Scotland has the best-performing A+E departments “anywhere in the UK”.

We're now under way with the next in a series of leaders' interviews. Watch live now on BBC One or in the video tab above.

The first question is on the SNP’s record governing Scotland.

At 18:00 BST we've got the latest in a series of general election interviews with party leaders by Andrew Neil. Tonight it's the turn of the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon. It's live on BBC One or the video tab above.

Gavin Bevis
BBC Local Live

Derby North is the most marginal parliamentary seat in the country. Conservative Amanda Solloway won in 2015 by a majority of just 41 votes.

Derby has also been named the "UK's capital of real ale" - with 200 different ales available, and 14 breweries.

The BBC has put two and two together and spoken to pub landlords to find out how their regulars may vote.