Labour will deliver the change Scotland needs if it is elected to government in May, according to the party’s leader, Ed Miliband.
He said Labour is “up for the fight”, as he gave a rallying speech in Clydebank with just over six weeks to go until the general election.
Mr Miliband said the May vote was “a fight to change Scotland with a Labour government, and fight to get rid of a rotten, discredited, unfair Tory government”.
“We know the people of Scotland want change,” he told the audience.
“People want change because they know the economy doesn’t work for them, they want change because they know politics doesn’t hear their voice, they want change because they know our society is unfair and unequal, and they want change because of the injustice and inequality they see all around them.
“Between now and the general election, we will show the people of Britain and Scotland that it is this party – not the Tories, not the Liberal Democrats, not the SNP – that can bring that change.
“I am here to say that in six and a half weeks, if you choose us, the next Labour government will deliver the change Scotland needs.”
Mr Miliband reaffirmed that a Labour government would deliver on the vow of more powers for the Scottish Parliament agreed the wake of the independence referendum.
He said: “It’s about an economy that works for all and it’s about power brought closer to people.
“We will deliver a home rule bill for Scotland in our first Queen’s speech. More powers over social security, over jobs, over income tax. The vow delivered, on time and in full by a Labour government.”
He added: “This election is also about something else. It’s about a pretty simple idea, an simple idea that is so much part of Scotland.
“It’s about the idea that we believe in a society where we look after each other.”
The Labour leader called for a “fundamental break” from the coalition Government’s “deadly cocktail of extreme spending cuts and unfair taxes”.
He said: “Tory austerity makes it so much harder for us to educate the young. Tory austerity makes life insecure for the old, Tory austerity undermines our NHS and our vital public services in every single part of the UK.
“So we will put paid once and for all to Tory austerity with a Labour government.”
Labour offered a “fundamentally different” plan to get the deficit down in its goals, approach and values, he said.
Mr Miliband added: “It’s time to get rid of these Tories, it’s time to put an end to their extreme plans, it’s time for a Labour government.”
Mr Miliband attacked SNP plans for full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, which he said would extend Tory austerity north of the border.
The Labour leader said: “That means the SNP fight this election still proposing to end the sharing of resources across the UK, the principle of redistribution.
“They are campaigning for the end of the Barnett Formula, replacing it with a reliance on risky and unpredictable oil revenues – revenues which even Nicola Sturgeon admits are astonishingly hard to predict.
“That has real consequences for Scotland because fiscal autonomy would make it impossible for Scotland to end Tory austerity – and in fact, worse than that, it would extend it.
“New figures recently published by the Scottish Government show it would mean huge cuts to the funding of health, education and policing – in total, on the basis of last week’s Budget, £7.6 billion lost to the people of Scotland.
“The SNP proposal for fiscal autonomy would cost Scotland billions, money that would have to come from cuts to the fundamental public services on which all the people of Scotland rely.”