Former Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman has called for her party to “grow up” as the SNP heads into its first full leadership election in almost 20 years.

Ms Freeman, who was an SNP MSP from 2016 until she stood down in 2021, hit out at colleagues in the party engaged in “infighting” as the race to replace First Minister Nicola Sturgeon gets under way.

Key figures within the party, such as former minister Marco Biagi, have hit out at Finance Secretary Kate Forbes over her stance on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Ms Forbes is widely touted as a frontrunner in the race to succeed Ms Sturgeon but she has not yet declared if she intends to stand.

Speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, Ms Freeman said: “The first thing I’d say is to my colleagues in the SNP, and I’d say to them: could you grow up?

“It’s not about you, it’s about the job that you were elected to do or the job that your party asks you to do.

“You will convince nobody, you will persuade nobody, you will achieve nothing by taking lumps out of each other.

“There is a big difference between respectful argument and listening to what other people say and personal attacks and hyperbole.

“If we don’t know by now that a party that appears to be fighting among itself is a party that won’t get support, that doesn’t actually deserve it, then I don’t know what else we need to do to learn that lesson.

“We see it all around us, we’ve seen it in some of the circumstances where we have secured electoral victory by not being like that.

“It is beyond my understanding why people are choosing to be so self-indulgent.”

Ms Freeman has not yet given her backing to any candidate in the election.