SCOTTISH Labour leadership contender Neil Findlay has hit back at claims by First Minister-in-waiting Nicola Sturgeon that the SNP is poised to supplant Labour as the party of social justice.

Ms Sturgeon, who will become SNP leader at her party's conference in Perth later this week, spoke of replacing Labour as "the party of social and economic progress for people".

But Mr Findlay, his party's health spokesman at Holyrood, who is taking on colleague Sarah Boyack and MP Jim Murphy in the contest to succeed Johann Lamont, hit back at the claim that Labour has "abandoned the social justice agenda in Scotland".

He said: "It is absolutely clear that Nicola Sturgeon's priority isn't independence. It's destroying the Labour Party.

"Her plan is to sound like the Labour Party even though her policies are increasing inequality and costing jobs in councils and cutting college places up and down Scotland.

"Ms Sturgeon can certainly talk the talk but that's all she'll do. To counter that, Labour needs policies that walk the walk and under my leadership that's what we'll have."

Ms Sturgeon had said: "The social democratic record of the SNP administration is strong, and one that I want to continually improve. And the reputational damage done to the Labour Party by its referendum alliance with the Tories - when it showed that it has far more in common with the interests of a right-wing Westminster administration than its own core voters in Scotland - will last for a generation or more."

She added: "Labour abandoned the social justice agenda in ­Scotland, preferring to align itself with the transient trappings of Westminster power - which yet again could prove to be a fool's errand next May. By contrast, that agenda of a fair society bolstered by a strong economy is one that will be the daily business of the party and government I look forward to leading."

Mr Findlay launched his leadership campaign at Fauldhouse Miners' Club in West Lothian at the weekend, buoyed by the backing of another of the country's biggest unions, the GMB - the union his Westminster opponent Mr Murphy joined as a Labour Party researcher a generation ago.

He only became an MSP at the last election and describes how he worked on building sites for many years before going to university and becoming a teacher, declaring: "I am not a machine politician."

An intriguing aspect of the contest is how the second preference votes will fall, with support for the two Holyrood candidates more likely to transfer mutually than any of those for Mr Murphy.

Mr Murphy's constituency ­Holyrood counterpart Ken ­Macintosh won the membership vote last time only to lose out in the union section of the electoral college, which Mr Findlay is dominating this time. Mr Murphy said at the weekend: "Scotland needs a confident and proud Scottish Labour Party offering a positive vision for the future, as well as exposing the cruelty of the Tories and the failures of the SNP."

The leadership campaign has several weeks to run before Johann Lamont's replacement is announced.