24/09/2014 Party Political Broadcasts - Scottish Labour Party

The last two years have been about keeping our country together.

The next eight months are about how we change our country.

And, you know, we need a party

that can speak for the whole of the United Kingdom,

for every part of the United Kingdom,

for every set of people in the United Kingdom.

There's a party that can do that, friends.

That is the Labour Party.

I go round the country and talk to people

and so many people say life's an incredible struggle at the moment

and even if it's not a struggle now,

people have lost that confidence that there is going to be a future

that is better than the past,

that their kids are going to do better than them.

I think that now there is a sense of we've been through the pain,

we've made the sacrifices.

Where is the vision for the country? Where is this country going?

It's time we had a plan

and that's what my plan for Britain's future is about.

The starting point for me

is that working people should share in the growing wealth of the country,

and that's why we're setting a clear objective to reduce poverty for

those in work so, over five years, we'll get to a minimum wage over £8.

That will benefit families.

It will send a message that hard work is going to be rewarded

again in our country, so that's a starting point for what we can do.

We can only succeed as a country

if we use the talents of all our young people

and for far too long, governments of both parties have spent a lot

of time worrying about those going to university, and that's fine,

but if I was a 14-year-old today

and I wasn't going down the academic route,

I think I would have no idea what qualifications

I was supposed to be doing,

what future I should be looking forward to.

And what it means is that my government will be saying,

at every opportunity, we'll be making sure apprenticeships actually happen.

If you want a major government contract,

you must provide apprenticeships.

If you bring in workers from outside the European Union,

you must provide apprenticeships to the next generation.

Now that is a big and dramatic change for our country

and it's going to require everyone to step up.

People often think about the environment as being

about safeguarding the planet for future generations.

I really care about that but it's not just about that.

It's about what jobs are our sons and daughters going to be doing?

We've got to create the jobs of the future in this country

and we're setting a very clear ten-year goal to create

a million new jobs in the environmental

technologies of the future and make Britain a world leader.

I think we can actually say there is a plan for the future.

We are a country that's going somewhere, knows where it's going,

and not the country which increasingly works

just for the richest in our society.

A different way is possible.

It is possible to build a country that does work for all

and not just for some.

The Tories have this idea that,

as long the richest few people are doing OK,

everyone else will somehow magically benefit from it

and that's not the way I think a country succeeds.

My view of success for a country is everybody playing their part

from top to bottom in society and it is about, in the end, who counts.

Is it just a few that count

or is it everyday working people that really count?

This election is going to come down to that question.

Do you want a Prime Minister, in David Cameron,

who's got a different idea about how a country succeeds?

Or do you want a Prime Minister who's thinking about you and your family?

And THAT is the election choice.