RUTH Davidson has claimed that making rape victims relive the trauma of their violent forced penetration so that they can claim benefits is nothing more than a “tick box exercise”.

The rape clause is the exemption to the benefit cap that allows women to claim tax credits for a third child if that child was conceived through rape.

“It does not require women to fill out a multi-page form; it is about making sure a third party does it for them,” Davidson said.

“All they have got to do is tick a box and put their name on it.”

Scottish women’s organisations have warned that “coerced disclosure is traumatic”.

In a separate interview the Scottish Tory leader also refused to comment on a report suggesting the two child cap would lead to more women having abortions.

Davidson was asked for her response to a report from the charity Turn2us to a Westminster committee that pregnant women were already contacting them to “undertake a benefit check to ascertain what they would be entitled to if they continue with the pregnancy, citing that the outcome will help them to decide whether they continue with the pregnancy or terminate it”.

Asked about the report, Davidson said: “I think every family makes decisions for themselves and the idea that a politician can opine upon that, I’m not going to get drawn into that.”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon branded that response “shocking”.

“I think when you’re faced with these kind of issues you have to decide what side you’re on, and if Ruth Davidson would rather defend benefit cuts than stand up for women as we saw her do in the debate in Parliament on the rape clause last week, then I think that says everything we need to know about the role that Tory MPs from Scotland would play.”

Labour’s Kezia Dugdale said: “It is absolutely sickening to watch Ruth Davidson defend the rape clause. To say this is a box ticking exercise is to trivialise the most horrifying of experiences a person can go through.

“Ruth Davidson is trying to pretend to Scots that she’s a different type of Tory – but this is the Nasty Party at its most vile.

“If Ruth Davidson is really as important to the Tory Party as she is trying to claim, then this policy won’t make the Tory manifesto.”