Holyrood and Westminster clashed over Scotland's economic performance yesterday after new figures suggested Scotland is continuing to lag behind the rest of the UK.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in Scotland grew by 0.2% over the first three months of the year, compared with 0.7% for the UK. Over the past year, Scotland's GDP grew by 2.4%, compared to a UK figure of 3%.

John Swinney, the SNP Finance Secretary, said the country had suffered from being a low growth economy for a generation and that past growth performance was not good enough.

He said: "Scotland lags behind the UK, which in turn lags behind many successful small European nations. The latest rise in GDP may have been deemed satisfac-tory in the past, but this government is determined to do better. We have set a target to match UK growth by 2011, and these figures show the scale of the challenge."

But David Cairns, Labour minister of state at the Scotland Office, said the figures showed Scotland's performance was improving. He highlighted the fact that the statistics represented the 11th consecutive quarter in which Scotland's annual growth had been above the general trend thanks to key sectors such as financial services posting impressive results.

Mr Cairns said: "Coupled with record highs in the employment rate and increasing export figures, it is good to see the business environment is in robust health."

Statistics show Scotland's service sector grew by 2.9%, construction by 5.4%, but the production sector fell by 0.8% over the past year.

During the same period, the UK experienced 3.7% growth in services, 0.2% growth in production while the construction sector grew by 1.8%.