Scottish Conservatives launch Holyrood campaign with 'rebuild' pledge
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Douglas Ross launched the Scottish Conservative campaign with an event in Aberdeen
The Scottish Conservatives have launched their Holyrood election campaign by saying MSPs should be 100% focused on recovery from Covid-19.
Leader Douglas Ross said the vote on 6 May was a "straight choice" between recovery or an independence referendum.
He said his party would rebuild Scotland by creating jobs, fostering economic growth, restoring schools and improving infrastructure.
The Scottish Parliament is now in recess until the election.
Parties are launching campaigns with Holyrood now in recess until the vote.
The SNP has pledged to hold a referendum if there is another pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament after the election, and published draft legislation on Monday which it says would enable this.
Constitution Secretary Mike Russell has said the party wants to hold indyref2 once the pandemic is over, and within the first half of the next five-year Holyrood term.
And on Thursday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, said independence would enable "a recovery made in Scotland" and give Holyrood "the powers needed to build a fairer and more prosperous country".
Launching the Tory campaign, Mr Ross said "we need to focus on our recovery - we need to rebuild Scotland now" rather than the constitution.
He added: "I do not want to go through the division of another referendum at any time, but it is even more important now that we do not make the current economic crisis worse by manufacturing a political crisis.
"The SNP don't want this election to be about their record in government over the last 14 years. Or their programme for government in the next five years.
"They want this election to be about one thing and one thing only - independence."
The MP said his party would set out a "positive plan for Scotland's recovery", which he said would include the recruitment of 3,000 more teachers, the reopening of local railways and stations and a focus on economic growth and jobs by "allowing every Scot to access £500 every year for training".
Mr Ross has confirmed that he intends to continue as the MP for Moray if he is elected as a Highlands and Islands list MSP, but said he would be taking "not a single penny" of his MSP salary.
He added: "I'll look at ways to set up a charity, but I will not benefit financially at all from being both an MP and an MSP."
Politicians who sit at both Westminster and Holyrood are entitled to their full MP salary, but only a third of the standard MSP salary.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie kicked off his campaign in a giant deck chair
Mr Ross also called for pro-UK voters to "rediscover that Better Together spirit" - and later told journalists that he was still open to working together with parties like Labour and the Lib Dems, as happened in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.
However this was dismissed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who said it was "playground politics" and an attempt by Mr Ross to "create relevance that he has failed to do so far in his leadership".
Mr Sarwar added: "The idea that we can deliver a fairer and more equal society with the Conservatives is just not credible and just not true."
Meanwhile, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie held his first photocall of the campaign by posing in a giant deck chair in the Firth of Forth.
He said his party was also looking to "put the recovery from the pandemic first", with an immediate focus on improving education, creating jobs, cutting NHS waiting times and boosting mental health services.
The Scottish Greens - who back independence - opened their campaign by calling on the Scottish government to double the new Scottish Child Payment from £10 per week per child to £20.
Co-leader Patrick Harvie said this would be "just the first step of creating a new Scotland that protects human rights and doesn't allow anyone to fall into dire straits".