NICOLA Sturgeon has hinted that she would have shut Scotland’s pub down, if she’d had the financial powers.

On Tuesday, the First Minister brought in a 10pm curfew for the country’s bars, in a bid to tackle rising coronavirus cases. 

Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily Covid briefing, the SNP leader said she would like to have gone further. 

The First Minister said she would be writing to the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of the furlough scheme or an extension of powers to the devolved administrations.

She said: "We mustn't be hamstrung in essential public health decisions by the lack of necessary economic mitigations.

"All four UK nations agreed a joint statement to the effect that we would focus our efforts 'on suppressing the virus to the lowest possible level and keeping it there' and that is really positive.

"It puts aside forever the idea that we can just let this virus run, because we know it does real damage in lives and in health."

Sturgeon added: "There is an argument... that all of us across the UK should actually be doing even more right now and there is a danger that what starts to hold us back is not the public health analysis but financial limitations."

The First Minister said she was being careful not to be political, but was reaching conclusions after looking at the data. 

“I think a curfew on pubs is a positive thing to do to try to reduce transmission in pubs. If I had the ability to bring more financial firepower to mitigate the jobs and economic impact, I probably would have gone further on pubs."