A senior Government source told the Sunday Telegraph: “We want to get this decision soon to stop the SNP turning the Scottish elections into a referendum on Trident”.
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Support for the SNP has risen sharply since the referendum, after which 45-year-old Sturgeon took over from Alex Salmond as party leader.
The conference in Aberdeen is the SNP’s first since the party’s landslide victory in Scotland in May’s United Kingdom general election, when the party won 56 out of 59 Westminster seats.
With Nicola Sturgeon now determined not to push for a second independence referendum imminently, excluding those who did not know or would not say, 48 per cent of those polled supported independence compared to 52 per cent who opposed it.
Sturgeon added that proposing a new referendum “without strong evidence” that many voters had changed their minds “would be wrong and we wouldn’t do it”.
At the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, Ms Sturgeon also launched a withering attack on Jeremy Corbyn, indicating that the SNP would find it hard to work with Labour at Westminster.
She added: ” We must convince the people of this country that I will be the best First Minister, that we are the best team, and that we have the best policies and the best vision to lead Scotland confidently into the next decade”.
The party’s eight cabinet secretaries will each make an appearance on the conference platform on Friday to outline their plans on areas such as education and health as the SNP seeks to win its third successive Holyrood win next May.
House of Commons lawmaker Michelle Thomson, who was also the SNP’s business spokeswoman, was suspended by the party last month after police started an investigation into her property dealings.
In a challenge to David Cameron, she said this would be “breaching the terms of last year’s vote” because the Prime Minister had warned that the only way to protect European Union membership was to reject independence.
A commission established immediately after the referendum has recommended a raft of new powers for the Edinburgh parliament, but many Scots feel the new levers do not go far enough.
Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Scotland director, Annie Mauger, said: “We desperately need to build more new housing to help the growing number of people who are struggling to access a decent home at a price they can afford”.
With a few SNP delegates expressing frustration that the timing of a second referendum is not on the official agenda, Ms Sturgeon said the party would be guided by “respect and democracy”.
He said Labour’s U-turn over last night’s vote on the Conservative Charter of Budget Responsibility, during which 21 MPs rebelled against Mr Corbyn and voted for it, was a “welcome change of heart”.
In contrast she said the SNP “stands against Trident today, tomorrow, always”.
Labour is hoping to rebuild its shattered support north of the border under new leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn though Sturgeon branded the party “unreliable” and “unelectable”.
It comes with not a single fringe meeting or motion at the SNP’s annual conference specifically discussing a second referendum, according to an official list of events, despite a few local branches reportedly demanding it be debated.
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She said: “And as Labour becomes ever more divided, the Tories – under the cloak of centrist rhetoric – threaten to even more deeply divide our society”.
