Labour election pledge to end foodbanks and homelessness

Richard Leonard launched his party’s election campaign in Maryhill.

He said: “Labour will end the shame of foodbanks in Britain. The austerity attacks on the most vulnerable needs to change.”

He said: “We will end homelessness once and for all in Scotland.”

Mr Leonard was joined by candidates from Glasgow and across the country to kick of the campaign which he said was one Labour can win.

He added: “This is not a proxy vote on constitutional arrangements.”

Instead he said it should be about inequalities and wealth.

Mr Leonard said: “The super rich have got richer and everyone else poorer.

“There has been a redistribution of wealth in precisely the wrong direction.”

He sidestepped a question on Labour’s UK leadership stating it wouldn’t block a second independence referendum if the SNP won a Holyrood majority in 2021.

He said: “I will be leading Labour into the 2021 elections to win those elections. There will be no independence referendum after 2021.”

He made a series of campaign pledges including ending age discrimination in the National Minimum Wage with a £10 an hour wage including 16 year olds.

He said Labour will not reform or mitigate Universal Credit but scrap it altogether.

And he said he wanted Scotland to be in the UK and the UK to be in the European Union.

The Scottish party leader said Labour would renegotiate a deal with the EU countries to leave and hen put it back to the people with an alternative choice of remaining in the EU.

Mr Leonard was joined at Maryhill Burgh Halls by the party’s candidate for Glasgow North, Pam Duncan Glancy.

She said: “In Glasgow we are launching the biggest campaign, the most radical campaign for change. This is the fight of our lives.”

Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon has said a second referendum is inevitable.

She said: “This is an opportunity for the people in Scotland to have their say.

“If the SNP win this election, I think that demand becomes irresistible.”