Scottish Parliament Election 2016: 19/04/2016 Party Election Broadcasts: Scottish Labour Party

I never expected to be elected leader

of the Scottish Labour Party last year

and it's an immense responsibility.

But it's also a huge honour and a privilege.

Scottish politics has changed and the Scottish Labour Party

simply has to change with it, and that's what we've done.

The Scottish Labour Party has a huge number of amazing achievements -

the National Health Service, the Scottish Parliament,

introduction of the National Minimum Wage.

It's done these great things in our country

and I think it can do equally great things again.

When I'm out across Scotland,

it reminds me why I wanted to do this job.

There's so much potential and promise out there and I want to see

every person in Scotland be able to make the most of their lives.

We've been through a lot in Scotland over the past couple of years,

but the past doesn't need to determine the future.

And that's as true for our young people as it is for our country.

I'm the daughter of two teachers,

I was brought up with a profound belief that education,

that schools can transform people's lives.

For too many people, they don't get those same opportunities to

be everything that they can be.

I was really lucky, I had a great education, a great experience

at school, and I want that for every single child in this country.

But we used to have the best education system in the world.

I want to close the gap between

the richest and the poorest kids in this country.

I think it's fundamentally unjust that where you were born

determines where you're going.

In the past few months we've seen the SNP government cut

education budgets and the budgets for vital public services.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We can choose to do things differently in the Scottish Parliament now,

protect our public services and stop the cuts.

We've got a simple plan.

There's nothing inevitable about cuts.

We can choose to do things differently, and that's what I want to do.

I want to invest in our children's future, to invest in Scotland's future.

And faced with that choice between using

the powers of our Parliament or cutting into our children's future

and just accepting Tory austerity,

the Labour Party chooses to use the powers to make different choices.

I've been attacked by the Tories, by the SNP,

both making the same arguments,

that we shouldn't ask the richest 1% to pay a little more.

But I'm not going to stop, because we can't afford to

cut into our schools, to cut into our children's future.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can make different choices.

We need real change now.