'LAST weekend I was pleased to welcome the Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn to Fife as he takes the Labour Manifesto “For the Many not the few” into communities to promote a discussion about the kind of country and kind of society we can be.

Speaking with a group of pensioners he re-stated Labour’s pensioners pledge – keeping the triple lock on state pensions, protecting the winter fuel allowance and the free bus pass.

The Tories planned to means test the winter fuel allowance, which could have affected over 10 million pensioners across the UK, before losing their majority in the General Election. The policy descended into chaos when they insisted it wouldn’t apply in Scotland – but offered no explanation as to how it would be funded north of the border.

Last week also saw the SNP Government launch a public consultation on the free bus pass, with a proposal to increase the eligibility requirement to the state pension age, while this year it cut the bus pass budget by around £10 million.

For many people today we take the welfare state and NHS as something that is just there, but it was the 1945 Labour Government that created these to tackle the scourge of want, squalor, idleness, ignorance and disease. Moving forward Labour will extend the welfare state from the cradle to the grave. People who have spent their lives paying into the system deserve something back. This is why Labour will protect pensioner incomes, by legislating to keep the triple-lock on state pensions, protecting the pensions of over one million Scottish pensioners, and guaranteeing them a basic income necessary to live a dignified life in retirement. We’ll protect benefits like the free bus pass and the winter fuel allowance, and deliver £3 billion more for public services in Scotland, some of which could be invested in our NHS, in social care and in the education of our children.

And crucially Labour will bring an end to failed Tory austerity which has caused widespread misery, kept wages low meaning most people have actually taken a wage cut over these last few years and significantly, failed Tory austerity has held back our economy whilst the national debt which it was meant to bring down has gone up. The time for change is now and we need governments that will do the best in the interests of the many not the few, this is what Jeremy Corbyn offers'.