Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn made the announcement as he unveiled the party’s manifesto in Birmingham ahead of the general election on December 12. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell had previously pledged £70billion of spending into Scotland, but this will now rise to £100billion over a decade-long period. The huge investment is based on party policy commitments made in the manifesto.
This includes £50billion of direct investment through Labour’s National Investment Bank and National Transformation Fund plans.
A further £50billion will be in “Barnett consequential” cash going to Holyrood as a result of spending on devolved issues elsewhere in the UK.
The Barnett formula is a system of grants that dictates the level of public spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Labour’s manifesto also pledges to spend £10billion from their National Transformation Fund to build 120,000 council and social homes in Scotland over the next 10 years.
The party claims the move will create up to 50,000 jobs in the country.
The National Investment Bank will have £20billion at its disposal for local projects and small businesses across Scotland.
Labour’s manifesto also includes proposals for a “green industrial revolution”, with “radical” environmental policies.
This includes £6billion to be spent on retrofitting houses in Scotland, with measures such as insulation to make them greener.
The party claims this will lead to lower customer bills and end fuel poverty, while also creating up to 35,000 jobs.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard hailed the move, claiming it will transform the country’s “public services, industries and wider infrastructure”.
He said: “In making this investment Labour is laying the foundations for a better, more just and fairer society where no-one is left behind and where every person is given the opportunities to lead a decent and fulfilling life.
“This extra investment will provide the funding that Scottish Labour would use to build 120,000 new council and social homes, invest £6 billion in retrofitting homes to the highest energy efficiency standards, and bring dignity back to care workers and care users alike with a 25 percent increase in investment in social care.
“This investment is the transformation that only a UK Labour government can make. This is the difference a UK Labour Government can make to Scotland.”
The Labour manifesto also makes clear Scottish independence is “economically devastating” and insisted a UK Government controlled by the party would not agree to a request for a fresh referendum “in the early years”.
Mr Corbyn has previously insisted he would “certainly not” grant a request for a second Scottish independence referendum until after the next Holyrood election in 2021.
The SNP launched a scathing attack on Labour’s plans for Scotland, with the party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford raging Labour had “fudged the key issues” facing the country.
He said: ”With the SNP government leading the way on climate change, setting out a positive case for strengthening immigration and protecting freedom of movement, and opposing the immoral and costly Trident nuclear weapons system, Labour must back the SNP’s plans.”
But prior to the launch of the manifesto this morning, Mr Leonard launched his own broadside at the SNP.
He said: “Back in 2014, many of those who campaigned and voted for independence did so because they saw it as an opportunity to challenge the failed status quo.
“Now the SNP’s own blueprint for independence prescribes a decade of cuts in a separate Scottish state.
“This is not a challenge to the status quo – it is a recipe for disaster, and a bid to turbocharge the failed austerity politics that Scotland has suffered for far too long already.
“Under my leadership in Scotland, and Jeremy Corbyn’s across the UK, Labour is now offering the people of Scotland a chance to break free from the failed policies of the Tories in Westminster, and from the SNP’s cuts, which they would accelerate in a separate Scotland.”
