SCOTTISH Labour leader Kezia Dugdale wants voters to know that her party is changing. She says Labour now has a “clear anti-austerity message and policies to back that up.”

Dugdale recently took time during her election campaign to speak exclusively to the Star about Scottish Labour’s election manifesto pledges to end austerity, halt the Trade Union Bill and challenge private companies profiteering from public services.

When I meet her in Scottish Labour’s campaign office in Edinburgh, Dugdale tells me that her party’s “priority” is to “end austerity in Scotland.” 

With the Scottish Parliament more powerful than it has ever been, she argues it is possible to use the new tax powers to raise enough revenue to stop cuts to public services. 

Referring to new research by progressive think tank IPPR, she argues that Labour’s tax plans will raise four times that of the SNP’s proposals — up to £1.2 billion annually, compared with a revenue of £300 million under the nationalists. 

Labour intends to raise this money by increasing income tax by 1p, and raising the highest rate for top earners to 50p.

Dugdale says she was “disappointed” by Nicola Sturgeon’s refusal to raise taxes on those earning over £150,000, and that the SNP leader had voted against the tax “a number of times.”

“This time last year Nicola Sturgeon made her name promising to end austerity,” yet she has simply used the Scottish Parliament to “pass on cuts.”

“Sturgeon argued that more powers [to the Scottish Parliament] would stop cuts, and now we have the powers she won’t use them,” says Dugdale.

The SNP has criticised Scottish Labour’s plan, saying that tax rises will hit low and middle earners at a time when they can least afford it.

Dugdale defends her position to raise taxes across the board, arguing that the 50p top rate alone will not generate enough revenue to stop cuts.

However, she says that for those earning Scotland’s median income of £25,000, it’s equivalent to the “price of a cup of coffee a week.”

She adds that “the price of not doing that is far greater, as [cuts to vital services will mean] libraries closing, fewer teachers” as austerity “cuts into the fabric of our society.”

On tax avoidance, Dugdale is clear that it represents “one rule for the rich and another for everyone else.”

She understands the public anger at the revelations and has published her tax return along with other party leaders in Scotland, saying there was a need to “restore faith in politicians.”

Transport union TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes recently called on Sturgeon to prevent companies which dodge tax from profiteering from public contracts, and Dugdale says the SNP should return donations from tax-dodging Stagecoach boss Brian Souter.

Dugdale says she agrees with TSSA’s demands “wholeheartedly” and that Labour “won’t give a penny of public cash to individuals or companies that avoid tax.”

She reveals that in the last parliament there was an amendment to the procurement Bill on tax avoidance and evasion, meaning that “the procurement Bill as it stands should stop people like Brian Souter getting contracts” and, in any case, on principle alone “no Labour government would stand for that.”

I ask Dugdale about the Scottish government’s decision to put the publicly owned CalMac ferries out to tender, which may see disgraced private company Serco running the ferries.

Dugdale says that Labour is committed to keeping the ferries public, adding that they were “crucial services and should not be exposed to profiteering” and that the Scottish government “never had to put them out to tender in the first place.” 

She says that the services are “lifelines” for communities in Scotland and that privatisation would “make life more difficult and challenging for islanders.”

She also pledges to keep the free bus pass for pensioners and bring in legislation on bus regulation in order to have a “transport system designed for communities and not private profit.”

Another major issue for the SNP has been fracking. The party issued a moratorium on the destructive method of fossil fuel extraction in order to gather scientific evidence before making a decision on whether or not to endorse it.

However, there is a huge amount of opposition from communities which will be affected by drilling, and from within the SNP grassroots membership itself. 

Labour has joined the Scottish Greens in offering to ban fracking outright. Dugdale says that “people affected by fracking should get a final say with a local referendum.”

She says her party’s principal objection to fracking is that it was harmful to the planet and more should be done to counteract climate change.

An issue I have been closely involved in is helping to organise young workers employed on zero-hours contracts, poverty wages and working for bad bosses. 

In recent months the STUC’s Better than Zero and Unite’s Decent Work Campaign have given a voice and a platform to many young workers to challenge these unscrupulous employers in new ways. 

Dugdale said these developments were “fantastic” and after giving space to Unite activists to showcase their work at Scottish Labour conference ahead of her speech, she said she would “do all I can to support that type of campaigning.”

However, one of the most pertinent issues affecting workers across Britain is the Tories’ Trade Union Bill, a clear attack on the fundamental right to organise and strike. 

Dugdale says Labour would go “to the ends of the Earth to stop this Bill” having pledged not to co-operate with the Bill and tabling a legislative consent motion at Holyrood as it had clear implications on devolved authorities. Labour are “100 per cent united to stop it,” she says.