A LABOUR government in Scotland would restore tax credits if they are cut by the Tories, leader Kezia Dugdale has vowed.

Scottish Labour will make the pledge a key plank of its campaign in the run-up to next May’s Holyrood elections, she told the party’s conference on Saturday.

Ms Dugdale (pictured) argued that “the historic role of Labour has always been to offer a genuine, radical alternative to the Tories” and attacked the SNP for “making excuses” instead of opposing the income cut for low-waged workers.

Her party faces a huge challenge in seeking to overturn the SNP’s 32-seat majority in Holyrood, especially after losing all but one of its MPs to the nationalists in May.

Ms Dugdale acknowledged the difficulty of the task, but said she had “no intention of making it easy for the SNP either.”

And she argued: “History tells us that it has always been those whose vested interest is in the economic and social status quo who have said there is no need for Labour. That is no different today.”

She condemned the SNP’s “threadbare record” in government, attacking the nationalists for cutting NHS spending in real terms and reducing student nurse places to dangerous levels.

Scottish Labour’s alternative includes a real living wage for care workers and higher education spending, funded by a rise in taxation of the richest, Ms Dugdale confirmed.

She also pledged to introduce a “fair start fund,” which will follow every child from poorer

backgrounds and will be under the control of schools “so that every school has an attainment fund equal to its needs.”

Scottish Green leader Patrick Harvie attacked Ms Dugdale’s tax credit pledge as a “cynical attempt to restore faith in the party’s social justice ethos.”

He said: “The voters know that Labour were the biggest blockage to meaningful devolution of welfare powers.”

Ms Dugdale expressed her gratitude to the trade unions for standing by the Labour Party, telling conference that Labour is “the party of working people, a proud party of trade unionists.”

She extended her solidarity to her own union, Community, and the steelworkers fighting to save their jobs and the steel industry in Scotland.