The SNP has vowed to hold the Scottish executive to account during the 2005 parliamentary year.

Setting out her party's Holyrood priorities on Tuesday, deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon also pledged to stand up for Scottish interests and advance the case for independence.

She indicated that first minister Jack McConnell could face a tough challenge in the months to come.

"My job is to lead an effective opposition that will hold him and his government to account; defend Scottish interests; and demonstrate how much more the parliament could achieve with the powers of independence," said the MSP.

"That is what I intend to do and it is what I am happy to judged on.

"So, in 2005, the Scottish people can rely on the SNP not just to resist the centralisation of hospital services, but to bring forward policies that would keep the NHS local and help cut waiting times."

Sturgeon said plans to amalgamate Scottish regiments and "introduce useless ID cards" would also be key campaigning issues for the nationalists.

"And while Jack McConnell is happy to sit on the sidelines as the UK takes on the presidency of the G8 and the EU, the SNP will argue for Scotland to speak with its own voice in the world – a voice that would speak up for real action to make poverty history and against damaging and illegal wars."

She predicted that 2005 "will be the year that the Scottish parliament comes into its own".

Energy row

Meanwhile in Westminster, the nationalists were under fire for their attitude to generating enough energy to meet Scotland's needs.

During a session of Scottish questions in the Commons, Labour MP George Foulkes said the SNP was rejecting to renewable energy sources, nuclear power and open cast mining.

"If they had their way, there would be no source of electricity generation and lights would be going out all over Scotland," he warned.

Scotland secretary Alistair Darling agreed with the warning.

"The logic of the nationalist position is that the lights would go out in Scotland because they are against nuclear power, they are against wind farms, they are against opencast coal," he told MPs.

"It is difficult to see where the electricity would come from - or dare I say perhaps they would import it from the hated England. The nationalist policy is a nonsense."

Renewable energy was "important" but nuclear power also had "an important role" in the balance, the Cabinet minister added.