Labour will pledge to invest £1billion in the Scottish NHS to provide extra staff and specialist cancer drugs.
Jim Murphy will set out to win over working class voters when he launches the party’s Scottish manifesto in Glasgow this morning with a raft of commitments to “make work pay”.
However, the Scottish party leader will insist the health service has suffered under the SNP with accident and emergency waiting time target not being met for more than 2,000 days since it was introduced.
High on the list will be a vow to “provide reinforcements” for hard-pressed health staff through the recruitment of 1,000 extra nurses.
There will also be a £200million cancer fund to make sure sufferers “get the treatment they need and deserve” and a £200million mental health fund.
Mr Murphy will say that the extra spending will be funded through a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2million and “by taking money from tobacco companies and making sure hedge funds pay their fair share”.
“Labour will deliver £1billion of new investment in the Scottish NHS,” he will say.
“Only a Labour government that believes in redistribution between both rich and poor, and south and north, can deliver this for Scotland.”
Other manifesto pledges will include a guaranteed job or training for long-term unemployed Scots, no matter their age; increasing the minimum wage to at least £8 an hour; working towards a living way; and abolishing zero-hour contracts.
Mr Murphy will argue that a vote for Labour will “unlock change” while a vote for the SNP will herald in five more years of Tory austerity.
“The big idea running through our plan is that Scotland succeeds when working class Scots succeed,” he will say.
“So the plan we present today offers not just a change to how our countries are governed.
“It offers a change to how our economy works and rewards our people.
“How Scotland votes in the election will decide whether we unlock change or block change for millions of Scots.”
Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “Without an admission of exactly how much Labour would cut from Scotland’s budget and an indication of exactly where the axe would fall, any other pledges in their manifesto won’t be worth the paper they are written on.”