A Home Rule Bill for Scotland is set to become the first piece of legislation a Labour government will bring forward if it wins power, Ed Miliband will signal during a visit to Glasgow.

 

The Labour leader's pledge will come as he lays out plans to devolve to Holyrood control over the Work Programme.

He will meet apprentices during a visit to a training centre alongside Jim Murphy, the Scottish party's leader.

The party leadership believes the Work Programme, designed to provide experience and training to help people find work, has failed Scotland with only 21 per cent of those on it moving into employment.

Speaking ahead of the event, Mr Miliband said Labour had "kept our promise and we have delivered the Vow" and stressed, just as in 1997, Scottish devolution would be at the top of its agenda should it win power on May 7.

"We will put the Home Rule Bill before Parliament in the first 100 days of the next Labour Government," declared the Labour leader. "This Bill will give Scotland the powers that were promised over jobs, welfare and tax."

But he said his party wanted to go faster and said next month it would force a vote on its Job Creation(Scotland) Bill to devolve the Work Programme before the election. But this is unlikely to succeed given the Coalition has already said it is technically unfeasible to do this before May 7.

Mr Miliband pledged that if the proposed Bill were rejected, then the party would "devolve control over the Work Programme immediately on taking power, so Scotland has the tools it needs to put people back to work."

The party leader insisted Mr Murphy was, after just a month of being elected Scottish Labour leader, already leading the political agenda in Scotland.

"Jim's getting to grips with the problems in Scotland's NHS with his plan for 1000 new nurses. He has set out a plan to deal with damaging job losses in the oil and gas sector. And he's talking about how Labour will use the new powers to deal with unemployment and get our young people back to work," he said.

The Labour leader's first visit to Scotland of 2015 comes as the polls place his party neck and neck with the Tories, his NHS policy has come under fire from Blairite ex-ministers and his aides have had to fend off claims of a possible post-election deal with Sinn Fein.

As the Tories goaded Labour about suggestions senior figures had approached the Irish republicans on a possible political accommodation - including with a new campaign poster showing Mr Miliband, the SNP's Alex Salmond and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams in front of No 10 - Opposition insiders dismissed out of hand the notion of a Sinn Fein-Labour tie up.

"We are working towards a Labour majority and we are only working towards a Labour majority. The implication that Ed is cosying up to Sinn Fein is untrue," insisted a senior source.

Despite Sinn Fein also dismissing the notion as "pure fiction", David Cameron nonetheless sought to make political capital. The Prime Minister told MPs at Commons question-time: "We've seen Labour casting around for a coalition with the SNP, a coalition with Sinn Fein; the first time in Britain we've had people who want to break up Britain or bankrupt Britain. What a useless shower."

BLOB PAR

North Sea nations have the skills and storage capacity to deliver a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry that will transform Europe's industry and power sectors, according to a new report.

Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage (SCCS) said in the study it would provide a least cost transition to a low-carbon future and a reliable electricity supply while helping to secure economic resilience.