SCOTTISH LABOUR leader Kezia Dugdale pledged to heed the call of anti-poverty campaigners and families yesterday in agreeing to use potential new powers to tackle child poverty by increasing child benefit.

Speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Perth, Ms Dugdale said that the Child Poverty Bill now going through Holyrood “should take meaningful action to combat poverty.”

Currently 220,000 Scottish children live in poverty. Scottish Labour says its plans to increase child benefit by £240 a year by the end of this parliament would mean up to 30,000 fewer children living in poverty once the changes are fully implemented.

Ms Dugdale said it would “send a strong message that Scotland will not allow hardworking families to bear the brunt of Brexit.”

She added that after Brexit the Scottish economy needs to “radically change,” and she confirmed that Scottish Labour will launch an industrial strategy to set out its plans for a new economy.

The strategy will address the rise in automation which has led to “too many industrial jobs replaced with low-paid and low-skilled jobs in the service sector,” Ms Dugdale continued, and is currently threatening up to 20 per cent of Scotland’s jobs in the financial sector.

She condemned the SNP for recently pushing through “another budget full of measures that will cut right to the heart of our public services” and “see millions lost from front-line local government services.”

The SNP was also accused of “failing to alleviate Tory austerity” and Ms Dugdale warned that Scottish Labour was “the last barrier between the people and austerity.”

She concluded by saying that Brexit decisions cannot just be taken by politicians and must involve ordinary people through a people’s constitutional convention.