TORY leadership contenders Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid have both ruled out a second independence referendum in the next 10 years.
The Conservative MPs, who recently announced bids to become party leader, were quizzed on the BBC's Sunday Morning show.
The two politicians launched their campaigns just days after Boris Johnson announced his resignation.
It came after Javid quit from the PM's Cabinet, followed by a wave of more than 50 resignations from ministers and other officials.
The two candidates ruled out allowing indyref2 to take place any time in the near future.
Asked by host Sophie Raworth if there are any circumstances in which he would allow a second Scottish independence referendum if he became Tory leader, Hunt said: "Not in the next 10 years."
Asking the same question to Javid, the former health secretary said: "The last one was for a generation so the generation hasn't changed.
I wouldn’t rule it out forever but not for at least a decade. Sajid Javid on Scotland deciding its own future. pic.twitter.com/gZTDm2vEBU
— Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) July 10, 2022
"Not forever but not at least not for a decade."
Tom Tugendhat, who is also running in the leadership contest, failed to say whether he would grant a Section 30 order if he won the party leadership.
Asked by host Martin Geissler on The Sunday Show if the UK is a voluntary Union, the Tory MP said: "Of course, it's a voluntary union".
Geissler asked: "Then why can't one member decide it wants to walk away from the club?"
Tugendhat replied: "Nobody is saying that can't happen."
Geissler told the formal soldier that is the Tory party's current policy but Tugendhat said that it was "simply not true".
He said: "What we are saying simply is that you can't keep asking the same question and hoping for a different answer."
Asked what the legal pathway for Scotland to leave the UK was, the Tory hopeful replied: "You know the legal pathway - Section 30 orders and all the rest of it.
"You know all of that. You don't need me to take you through the legal. What you're actually arguing is you're arguing the polls aren't pointing in the directions the SNP wish and actually they are failing in education, they're failing in healthcare and now they're trying to distract by talking about separation again.
"I'm afraid this is a cheap political play. What we really need to be talking about is the success of Scottish students and the success of Scottish doctors and nurses and the ability to help them to do even better.
"What we need to do is help them succeed, not tear them apart."
Asked under what circumstances he would be prepared to grant Scotland a Section 30 order if he became PM, Tugendhat said: "I am not going to go get into hypotheticals in the future.
"I think what I really need to address is what people care about now."
Meanwhile, Hunt announced that his colleague Esther McVey would be deputy prime minister if he were to win the leadership race.
Hunt likened the Tatton MP to John Prescott as Tony Blair’s deputy when he made the announcement on BBC’s Sunday Morning.
He said: “I also recognise that the leader of a political party has to win elections, and that means a broad appeal, so just as Tony Blair had John Prescott to broaden his appeal as his deputy prime minister, I will have Esther McVey as my deputy prime minister.
“She has won a lot of elections against Labour in the north, I have won them against Lib Dems in the south and I think we will be a formidable campaigning team.”
The two Tory hopefuls also backed Priti Patel's system of sending some migrants on a one-way flight to Rwanda, saying he "supports the current policy".
Hunt, another previous health secretary, billed himself as the most “experienced” hand in the party leadership content.
Hunt told the Sunday Morning that there were “a lot of very angry voters” who had abandoned the party in recent months, adding: “They are not going to come back to us automatically and choosing me will be a very strong signal that the Conservative Party has listened to their anger.
“The reason I am putting my name forward is not that, it is because the two biggest challenges we face as a country now are the international crisis in Ukraine and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.
“I am the experienced Foreign Secretary who is also an entrepreneur who will get the economy going.”
On whether he would offer tax cuts for struggling families, Hunt said: “No Conservative should offer unfunded tax cuts. I think that no Conservative should raise taxes either. What you need is smart tax cuts that will grow the economy.”
He also said he would be happy to publish his tax records in the event he were one of the two final candidates in the race.
Also speaking on the Sunday Morning show, Javid denied claims that his resignation was plotted alongside Rishi Sunak's.
The former Chancellor resigned just after Sajid had announced he would leave the Cabinet.
Asked about the timing of the two resignations, Javid said: “Not at all. I had no idea what he was going to do. I can understand what he did because I read his letter afterwards, but not at all.
“This was a decision made by me, no one had – even the closest advisers in my department – no one had any idea I was going to do this and it wasn’t about leadership or anything else.”
Javid was also asked why he hadn't quit during the partygate scandal as he said he trusted what he was being told when he spoke on behalf of the Government on television and radio.
Asked why he did not resign when he read the Sue Gray report, he said: “Throughout that period, I was giving the benefit of the doubt.”
He said he thinks this was “the right thing to do”.
Asked if he always told the truth when he represented the Government on the broadcast rounds, and believed what he had been told by the Prime Minister, the BBC’s Sunday Morning: “I trusted what I was being told.
“It turns out some of the things I was told – and I said this quite clearly in Parliament when I made my statement – didn’t turn out to be true.
“Now, I don’t know why someone would have said something to me that wasn’t true. That’s a question for them. But I trusted what I was told.”
Nine Tories have so far put themselves forward to replace Johnson as Prime Minister.
Former health secretary Sajid Javid pledged to slash corporation tax as they announced separate bids for the Tory leadership.
It comes after two serving Cabinet ministers, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, revealed their intention to run for the top job in the space of an hour.
Greg Hands, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Attorney General Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps and Kemi Badenoch are also running to be Tory leader.
