KEZIA Dugdale would tax low and middle-income Scots families more than Jeremy Corbyn, she confirmed yesterday as she launched her party’s General Election manifesto.

The Scottish Labour leader said she was sticking with her plan to add 1p to the 20p and 40p rates of income tax, despite UK Labour ruling it out as too punishing for “ordinary families”.

The SNP said Scottish Labour would hit workers with a “tax bombshell”.

Mr Corbyn and his shadow Chancellor John McDonnell last week put tax changes at the heart of the UK Labour manifesto, promising a freeze for those earning below £80,000, with a 45p rate between £80,000 and £123,000 and a 50p rate above that.

Their manifesto said: “We will not ask ordinary households to pay more. A Labour government will guarantee no rises in income tax for those earning below £80,000 a year.”

However the passage was replaced in Scottish Labour’s manifesto with a promise to use Holyrood’s powers over income tax “to make different choices”.

Asked about the difference, Ms Dugdale said: “We are committed to our tax proposals from last year’s Scottish parliament’s election.Why? Because income tax is devolved.”

The Scottish Labour policy means no 45p band, and the 50p band starting at £150,000 not £123,000, although there would also be a tapered loss of allowance over £100,000.

The Scottish party later said the difference was because there were too few high earners in Scotland to raise its target of £690m extra for services without raising the 20p and 40p rates.

Mr McDonnell simply had more rich people in southeast England to tax, an official said.

UK Labour spending plans on new policies would also lead to an extra £3bn for Scotland through the Barnett formula by 2021, the party said.

The SNP supports a 50p top rate UK-wide, but has rejected it for Holyrood alone, in case high-earners leave the country.

SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson said: “This shows once more Kezia Dugdale’s desire to hit the poorest in our society with a bumper tax bill - seeking to raise the tax burden on those on the lowest incomes.

“Labour cannot pretend to support ordinary workers when at the same time they want to hit them with a fresh tax bombshell - something even the UK Labour party have avoided."

"As always on tax, on Trident and on Brexit, Labour are at sixes and sevens.”

The Scottish Labour manifesto also omitted its policy to oppose the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Instead, it said: “Defence is a reserved issue and UK Labour continues to support the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.”

Asked why the Scottish policy was missing, Ms Dugdale said: “Because defence is a reserved issue and a commitment of the UK-wide manifesto was the renewal of Trident.”

Ms Dugdale said the key policy for her in the manifesto was the UK-wide promise of a £10 an hour living wage to lift 5m people out of in-work poverty and help cut the welfare benefit.

She said 467,000 people in Scotland earned less than the living wage, two-thirds of them women, and some 57,000 people were on zero hours contracts.

Promising a Labour government in Westminster would scrap zero hour contracts, she said: “Labour introduced the minimum wage in 1998, despite the predictions of the Tories and others that it would wreck the economy. Some are saying the same now, but the truth is our business can afford to pay a little more so that workers aren’t paid a poverty wage.”

However the major theme of her speech was Scottish Labour’s “cast-iron guarantee” never to support independence and an appeal to voters to help her break the SNP’s “stranglehold”.

She said the SNP’s record showed the damage done by its obsession with independence.

"That's why our schools, our hospitals and our economy have under-performed. They're running a campaign, not a government. It's not good enough for Nicola Sturgeon to say she is trying her hardest when she has been a member of the government for a decade.

"That's why across Scotland, people are angry about the push for a second referendum.

"They know it means more wasted years where the things that really matter are sacrificed on the altar of a dogmatic, nationalist agenda."

Addressing people in seats where a split Unionist vote helped the SNP win in 2015, she said: “I’m asking people in those communities to think again before they vote. If, like me, you want to break the hold that nationalism has on our politics, vote for the only party that can defeat the SNP in most places in Scotland - the Labour Party."

She contrasted her party's policies with the "miserable and mean manifesto" of the Tories, and said Labour was the most credible alternative to the "twin evils of SNP and Tory cuts".

Patrick Grady, SNP candidate for Glasgow North, said that by including UK Labour’s pledge to renew Trident, Ms Dugdale had supplied “final proof, if it were needed, that Labour in Scotland still takes its orders from London – the ‘branch office’ is back in business.

“Kezia Dugdale’s claims about being an independent party have been exposed as bluster.

“That is a betrayal of its own membership, and shows where Labour’s priorities lie – spending countless billions on nuclear weapons instead of tackling austerity and investing in our future.”

John Lamont, ory candidate in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Tweeddale, said Ms Dugdale and Mr Corbyn were too weak to be trusted to defend the Union against the SNP.

He said: “Labour may pretend it opposes a second referendum. But we know exactly where its constitutional priorities lie – they want to prop up the SNP in councils across the country, and suspend any councillors who choose instead to work with the Scottish Conservatives.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: "The big problem for Labour is that they voted with the Conservatives for an extreme hard Brexit. They have joined Ukip in giving up on the single market. They would be devastating for Scottish jobs.”