One of Scotland's largest unions has repeated its challenge to Nicola Sturgeon to debate Trident renewal in front of shipyard workers.

GMB Scotland has invited the First Minister to debate the issue in front of staff from Faslane, Coulport, Rosyth and the upper Clyde shipyards.

Ms Sturgeon riled the union last week after pledging to force the SNP's opposition to Trident renewal to the forefront of her Holyrood election campaign priorities.

Gary Smith, Scottish secretary of the union, said the scrapping of Trident would put jobs and entire communities at risk.

In a letter to the First Minister, he said: "GMB represents many workers employed in the defence industry, including those who work on the Clyde and at Rosyth.

"Those working women and men and their families are counting on a future of full employment - they know that the only guarantee for that is for Trident to be replaced by a new nuclear defence deterrent stationed in Scotland.

"Scotland has deep-seated inequality, high levels of unemployment, underfunded public services, an underdeveloped industrial base, a housing crisis; these should be key election issues rather than Trident replacement.

"However, given the decision you have taken to raise Trident's successor as a Scottish Parliament election issue, I would like to challenge you to debate this question in front of an audience of working women and men from the upper Clyde and Rosyth at a venue, time and place of your choosing."

Ms Sturgeon shared a stage in London with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the weekend, telling tens of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators that Trident was "immoral" and "impractical".

Speaking of her plans to make it a key issue at the forthcoming Holyrood election, she said: "It is the norm in the world today to be nuclear-free. It is the exception to the rule to possess nuclear weapons: let that ring out loudly and clearly".