Nicola Sturgeon has quietly dropped her previous commitment to hold another vote on Scottish independence by the spring of 2019, the SNP's manifesto for the 2017 general election has revealed.

The manifesto, unveiled at an event in Perth on Tuesday morning, is light on mentions of independence and gives no detail on when another vote should be held other than "at the end of the Brexit process".

When Sturgeon announced her intention to hold another vote on independence at the beginning of March, the first minister specifically laid out a plan to hold the vote between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019.

The section on independence in the 2017 manifesto says that a referendum should be held "when the final terms of the deal are known" and that a win for the SNP next week would deliver "a triple lock" on Sturgeon's mandate to hold one.

Asked if she still stood by her previous timetable commitment of holding the vote between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, Sturgeon admitted a vote could take place later, depending on how long the UK government takes to strike a Brexit deal.