The Labour Party leader for Holyrood has called on the Scottish Government to end "the scourge of knife crime".

Iain Gray accused Alex Salmond of inaction on mandatory sentences for knife crime and for failing to implement legislation from 2007 that would license the sale of non-domestic knifes.

The exchanges at First Minister's Questions on Thursday came on the eve of a special debate on knife crime in the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Gray said: "Why doesn't the First Minister simply order his justice secretary to go the knife summit tomorrow and say he will stop dithering and start controlling knives?".

Mr Salmond rejected the accusations of needless delay and pointed to "substantial results" in fighting crime. And the First Minister fired a shot at Labour for abstaining from last year's budget crunch vote after a debate which saw the SNP pledge to recruit more police in response to pressure from the Tories.

"When it comes to supporting the police in Scotland, in this coming budget Iain Gray had better remember - an abstention is not enough."

The knife summit at Holyrood has been organised by the public petitions committee. The debate will involve police, young people, health workers and politicians. It follows a campaign by John Muir, whose son Damian was murdered in Greenock in 2007, for automatic prison sentences for those caught carrying knives.

Late Thursday it was learned the Scottish Justice minister will miss the summit. Kenny MacAskill is in Canada to attend a number of functions surrounding the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth. Community safety minister Fergus Ewing will represent the SNP at the summit.

Annabel Goldie, meantime, claimed Mr Salmond wants to make Scottish pound notes a foreign currency north of the border by ditching them for the euro.

The SNP favours adopting the euro if Scotland became independent, although party policy states there will be a referendum on the issue.

In her question to the First Minister, Ms Goldie said that under the SNP people will be able to spend Scottish banknotes in Brighton but not in Banff and Buchan - the constituency Mr Salmond represents at Westminster. She challenged the First Minister on the issue the day after Tory MP David Mundell launched a private members' bill at Westminster to make shops in England accept Scottish notes.

"Alex Salmond would exile all Scottish banknotes and make them a foreign currency here in Scotland," she said.

"Isn't it the truth that our First Minister's smiling support for our Scottish banknotes is a load of hypocrisy? He's the man who, given half the chance, would sign their death warrant in Scotland as the SNP rushes to join the euro."

Mr Salmond told her he had discussions with the European Monetary Institute about banknotes before the Scottish Parliament came into existence.

He said he had gone to Europe to "argue the case for Scottish euro notes in the same way we have Scottish sterling bank notes".

Senior figures there had agreed it is "perfectly possible" for Scotland to have a Scottish euro, he said.

Ms Goldie replied: "Does that not say it all about Alex Salmond. Rather than keep the pound and our Scottish banknotes, he'd settle for some centralised euro notes with a bit of regional branding - probably his own face or perhaps a haggis but perhaps some people wouldn't even know the difference."