LABOUR will today highlight a dramatic fall in the number of young Scots getting a mortgage as the party attempts to make home ownership a key battlefield in the Holyrood elections.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale will pledge to help workers get on the property ladder as the starting gun fires on May’s poll.

Just over one-quarter, 28 per cent, of under-35s now own their home with a mortgage – the lowest level since the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999.

Ms Dugdale will say that the aspiration toward home ownership has “stalled for a whole generation”.

The SNP hit back, saying that Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney announced £90 million extra for housing in last month's budget.

The party also promises 50,000 new affordable homes over the next five years.

Over the weekend First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also renewed debate about independence, as she insisted SNP supporters had not been "brainwashed”.

The SNP leader said that voters recognised her party’s faults– but backed it over the alternatives.

"Those who support the SNP have not been brainwashed, they are not blind to our imperfections," she wrote, "instead, they are weighing them against our strengths and achievements, and against the other parties, and deciding that the SNP is the party they most closely identify with, the people they trust most to stand up for Scotland."

Recent surveys suggest the SNP is on course for another landslide victory at Holyrood.

Labour insiders warn that their party could struggle to hold any of its constituency seats in May, potentially leaving only those on the regional member top-up system.

Today marks the start of a fierce battle within the party as individuals, including current MSPs, scramble to win a prominent position on the 'list'.

A number of the would-be Labour MSPs voted Yes to independence in the 2014 referendum it has emerged.

Ms Sturgeon will lead a debate at Holyrood tomorrow to mark the beginning of official regulated election period.

On the eve of the session Labour said that the number of under-35s getting a mortgage had fallen 15 per cent since the SNP came to power in 2007, just months before the beginning of the global financial crisis.

Scottish Labour also hit out at the Conservative Government at Westminster saying that many young people with dreams of owning their own home had been hurt by years of austerity, which the party argues led to mismanagement of the economy.

In recent Budgets the Tory Chancellor George Osborne has 'bet the house' on initiatives designed to stimulate the housing market.

These include the controversial Help to Buy scheme, which has been replicated, albeit with a number of differences, by the Scottish Government.

Today David Cameron will announce ambitious new plans for ministers themselves to build houses in England for the first time in decades.

Up to 13,000 new homes could be under construction on publicly owned sites within the next few years.

No 10 sources said that similar policies north of the Border were a matter for the SNP government.

In a speech in Edinburgh tomorrow Ms Dugdale will say that new powers over tax, borrowing and welfare due to come to Holyrood offer a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity to change Scottish politics.

She will warn that under-30s have had the lowest wage increases in recent years, adding: “A whole generation of Scots, thousands of people my age, have been left behind by austerity.

“Young people have also found themselves saddled with increasing levels of student debt under an SNP government which promised to cancel debt but which has instead doubled it.

“For too many young couples in Scotland today, buying a house isn’t a realistic prospect."

An SNP spokesman said: "It's a pity that Labour haven't set themselves a New Year's Resolution to come up with costed and credible proposals in opposition - just more carping from the sidelines."

Opening the Holyrood debate Ms Sturgeon will pledge to "earn" the right to an historic third term in government with a raft of new policies on health, education, welfare and the economy.

Meanwhile the Scottish Conservatives will focus on education, setting out proposals to improve literacy and numeracy.

Yesterday Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie accused Ms Sturgeon of "opinion poll cockiness" which he said was no substitute for a proper debate "on her years in government".