David Miliband keen to use Scotland to test Labour policies if party wins in 2011

Published on Thursday 10 June 2010 21:22

A LABOUR return to power at next year's Holyrood elections could see Scotland become a "laboratory" of what the party would be like in government at Westminster, David Miliband said yesterday.

The front-runner for the party leadership told The Scotsman that if Labour won next year's Scottish Parliament elections it could trail policies on "affordable housing" and "safer streets" that could pave the way for a swift return to power in the UK.

Mr Miliband made his comments during a visit to the Scottish Parliament, where he met Labour MSPs and watched First Minister's questions from the visitors' gallery.

The former foreign secretary promised to put himself at the "disposal" of the party in Scotland in the run-up to next year's poll and said he would spend time on the campaign trail in what would be Labour's "first real test" after the recent general election.

Mr Miliband went on to accuse Alex Salmond's SNP of over-promising and under-delivering, and insisted Labour was in "good shape" to unseat the Nationalists.

He said: "The Scottish Parliament election is very important and is the first big test since the general election to show that Labour can bounce back.

"I've said to Iain Gray that particular ideas on affordable housing and safer streets could be a laboratory to show what Labour can do. Alex Salmond's administration has over-promised and under-delivered and has disappointed its own supporters, as well as voters as a whole.

"Labour is in good shape and will be a strong fighting party and I'll be at the disposal of the party in Scotland during next year's campaign, when I will spend time here."

Mr Miliband went on to say that he backed greater powers for the Scottish Parliament, which he said was a "thriving legislature".

He said that he was "very supportive" of the commission's call for greater tax-raising powers for Holyrood as well as control over areas like drink-driving, speed limits and air weapons.

Mr Miliband said Labour under his leadership would be a "fighting opposition" that would expose what he said were the "broken promises" of David Cameron's Lib Dem-Tory coalition government at Westminster. He said: "The coalition government is taking risks with the economy and is hell bent on unfairness."

The Labour leadership hopeful also said he would want his brother Ed, the former energy and climate minister who is also standing in the election, to serve under him in any shadow Cabinet he leads.

However, he would not commit to whether he wanted the other three contenders – former education secretary Ed Balls, former health minister Andy Burnham and the left wing MP Diane Abbot – to serve in the shadow Cabinet, which is elected by the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband has called on the Labour Party to "turn the page" from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – and said he is the man to do it. The younger of the Miliband brothers said that Labour needed to move on from a culture that "stifled dissent" and was "too technocratic and managerial".

Mr Miliband told activists in Leeds that the party should remodel itself around grassroots campaigning rather than political positioning.

Ms Abbott, the left wing candidate for the post who scraped on to the ballot paper, said that she wanted to make sure "important issues" such as Afghanistan were now discussed in the leadership debate.