Rival Christian parties clashed yesterday over proposals for a referendum on the death penalty and the suggestion that prisons should be built in third world countries to take Scottish inmates.

The Scottish Christian Party not only wants a referendum on bringing back hanging, it has radical ideas for solving the current overcrowding in Scottish prisons.

The party "believes that the much needed extra prison capacity should be purchased from developing countries for the purpose of catering for Scotland's medium security prisons." It states: "This should take the form of building state of the art prison facilities in developing countries that wish to host Scottish prisons."

Advantages would include: "Less overcrowded prisons, cheaper costs and greater efficiency. More resources at home to look after our worse offenders properly. More economic trade instead of aid handouts to developing countries. Raising prison standards in developing countries by example and the provision of expertise."

The Rev George Hargreaves admitted he was "thinking out of the box" as he said of his Scottish Christian Party vision: "If we can export our call centres to the far east and take our rubbish to the far east, we could deal with prison overcrowding by sending it overseas. Why not take our lemons and make lemonade for someone else?"

The Scottish Christian Alliance, from which Mr Hargreaves broke away, were appalled by his ideas. "We are absolutely against capital punishment as we are a pro-life party in every sense, and as for this overseas prisons idea, absolutely not, this is just crazy."