Labour challenges SNP to support debt amnesty and help block trade union reforms

Labour has urged the SNP to stand up to Westminster by backing their calls to dump pre-devolution debt and continuing the fight to block trade union reforms in Scotland.

Union Unite has called for an amnesty on all debt accumulated prior to to the creation of the Scottish Parliament, to reflect their belief that devolution was intended to be a fresh start''.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said if the SNP is serious about ending austerity it will support Unite's plan, in a speech to the first ever Unite Scottish policy conference.

Ms Dugdale also accused the SNP of sitting on their hands'' and allowing the Trade Union Bill to be enforced in Scotland, after Holyrood's Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick said the Scottish Parliament is powerless to veto the Bill.

Ms Dugdale said: I have met with Peter Lawson, Unite convenor at Edinburgh City Council, to discuss the union's local government debt amnesty plans.

In particular we have looked at the servicing of debt owed to the Public Works Loans Board within the UK Treasury, and the rates being paid to service pre-devolution debt are extraordinary.

Take for example Dundee City where the equivalent of 55p from every pound raised through council tax is being spent on servicing pre-devolution debt.

This is a council which has just offered thousands of voluntary redundancies, and scrapping the pre-devo debt could save as much as £36 million over the next three years.

Devolution was to be a fresh start, a new beginning and yet this historic interest is still a millstone around the neck of councils who are facing Scottish Government cuts.

If the Scottish Government were serious about ending austerity they'd make the case right now for the interest on this debt to be dropped.''

On the Trade Union Bill, she added: We offered to work with the Scottish Government, to secure a Legislative Consent Motion which could allow Holyrood to block key parts from reaching Scotland.

But when the Presiding Officer blocked that route, we did not stop.

Instead Scottish Labour MSPs took direct action. Every Labour MSP lodged topical questions, to guarantee one was taken, which challenged the Presiding Officer's ruling, and at that sitting.

Labour MSP after Labour MSP made points of order challenging that ruling.

And while one Labour MSP was eventually suspended from the chamber, not one single SNP member spoke up.

Now conference I will work with anyone in Holyrood to stop this bill, but that is not a sentiment that is being shared by the governing party who have the parliamentary majority.

All Labour MSPs have now signed a motion calling for cross party support to change the rules of our parliament to block this bill.

Not one of the member of the SNP group has joined us.

I may be of a new generation in the Scottish parliament, but I have been around long enough to recognise when people are being to sit on their hands.

And I find it a disgrace that Labour, Greens and independents are cooperating and SNP MSPs are being told to stay out of it.

We have come forward this week seeking new rule changes that could block key parts of this bill, the Scottish Government can use its majority and back us in a show of solidarity.

Or they can refuse to work together. It's their choice.''

The Unite Scottish policy conference comes at a time of growing tensions between Labour and the unions over Jeremy Corbyn's defence review, which calls into question the party's support for nuclear weapons.

Britain's nuclear fleet is based at Faslane, just 20 miles from the Unite conference in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire.

Labour say Faslane supports 19,000 jobs but Trident was not on the agenda this weekend, with Ms Dugdale insisting Unite has other things to talk about.

In a briefing to journalists, she said: It's such a big issue that it's not even on the policy agenda for this weekend.

Nobody is debating Trident here. We've got lots of other issues to talk about to represent the 150,000 workers that they represent across the country.

We see that from council cuts, which right now is the most pressing issue facing local authority workers.

£500 million worth of cuts, 15,000 jobs set to go, those are the issues that delegates are arriving here terribly angry about and desperate to debate and communicate to leading political figures.''

Ms Dugdale said it is within the Treasury's gift to write off pre-devolution council debt, which currently stands at £2.5 billion with an annual interest of 7% to 8%.

Asked if she had discussed Unite's proposal with former Labour chancellors Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling, she said: I met Unite to discuss this on Tuesday of this week so no, I haven't.

But I don't need to speak to them to believe there is a compelling case for doing this.

I think Unite's document makes a compelling case for why we should go collectively to the Treasury to ask that this debt interest be written off.''

She said Unite delegates in the Welsh Assembly are also calling for a similar debt amnesty.

Ms Dugdale also said she has legal advice which suggests Holyrood can change its standing orders to block the Trade Union Bill, without straying beyond its devolved competence as set out in the Scotland Bill.

She said: If the standing orders don't allow for a Legislative Consent Motion - let's change the standing orders.

The Scottish Parliament is in full control of its standing orders. Any committee or any organisation that has standing orders, the governance structure allows it to amend its standing orders.

Thomsons' Solicitors advice is that this is the right thing to do. The advice that we have is that this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing, and I will pursue every avenue that I have to stop this Bill.''

An SNP spokeswoman said: Given that it was Labour that drew up and established the 1999 Devolution Settlement and could have cancelled this debt at the time it is hypocrisy for Kezia Dugdale to suggest that it is the SNP that needs to act now when it was in the gift of her predecessors to give Scotland the fresh start it deserved.

And while her Labour Party colleagues in Westminster remain hopelessly divided it is the SNP that is providing real and effective opposition to the Tories - including the Dickensian Trade Union Bill.

Kezia Dugdale should ask Jeremy Corbyn to support the SNP's calls for trade union laws to be devolved as Labour voted to leave these powers in David Cameron's hands, instead of allowing the Scottish Parliament to take a new and better approach, giving him carte blanche to undermine unions in Scotland.''

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