General election 2024: Anas Sarwar launches Scottish Labour manifesto and makes Holyrood tax pledge for 2026

But Mr Sarwar also pledged that if Labour ousts the SNP at Holyrood in 2026 there would be no increase in income tax.

And the manifesto launch at Edinburgh's Murrayfield stadium heard a former approved SNP candidate deliver a speech criticising the Nationalists and explaining why he had resigned and joined Labour.

Anas Sarwar launched the Scottish Labour manifesto at Edinburgh's Murryafield stadium. | TSPL

With 17 days to go until polling day, Labour presented its 135-page manifesto as a "blueprint to a brighter future".

Mr Sarwar claimed people across Scotland were "frustrated and angry after being let down by their governments for so long".

He said: "Families are struggling to put food on the table or heat their homes. They can’t access a GP and are left waiting months for a hospital appointment.  And they are worried about opportunities for their children and grandchildren.

"Fourteen years of chaos under the Tories, and 17 years of failure under the SNP, have diminished hope, created division, and shattered opportunities."

He spoke of "Labour’s plans to transform our country and deliver a decade of national renewal". 

And he restated his opposition to the two-child benefit cap, even though Labour has made no commitment to abolish it. 

He said: "We were right to oppose the two-child limit, right to vote against it.But the honest reality is that after 14 years of Tory economic carnage we will not be able to do everything we want to do as fast as we want to do it."

But he insisted: "Fighting poverty is in the Labour party's DNA, it's who we are, it's why we exist.. Once the financial circumstances allow, we want to remove the two-child cap."

He said the manifesto was "our first steps fo change" and added: "We want to go further than this. This isn't the height of our ambition but the starting point. We are being honest and straightforward in only making promises we know we can keep and only making spending commitments we know we can afford."

Asked about Labour's UK manifesto commitment that there would be no increase in any of the income tax rates or bands, including the top rate, in England Wales and Northern Ireland, and whether he could rule out any increase in any band or rate in Scotland if he became First Minister  in 2026, he answered: "Yes".

Earlier, Shadow Scottish  Secretary and Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray had introduced former approved SNP candidate Doug Thomson, who had wanted to take on Mr Murray seven years ago.

Mr Murray said: "He  is a businessman, a former senior member of the SNP and one of my constituents.  He stood for selection against me in 2017 for the SNP. Now he is standing alongside me as a member of the Scottish Labour Party."

Former approved SNP candidate Doug Thomson explained why he had switched to Labour | TSPL

Mr Thomson, a former fund manager, said: "Until the start of this year I was a long-standing member of the SNP.  I was an approved parliamentary candidate endorsed by a former First Minister, I even threw my hat in the ring against In Murray.

"I believed voting for the SNP was best for me, my family, my industry, the economy and above all my country, I joined the SNP in the wake of the financial crisis, believing that perhaps with independence there was an opportunity to rebuild a better, more prosperous and fairer economy. 

“But I don't believe that any more - the SNP and its no-growth economy partners the Greens have disproved any hope of that. I feel let down and I know I'm not alone.

“After 17 years of an SNP government at Holyrood and 14 dire years of Tory rule from Westminster we've all been let down.  I for one have had enough. I've come to the conclusion that this changed Labour Party will form the government that I and others have been crying out for."