Labour commitment to stop bank closures

Party also pledges to reject second independence referendum

A Labour government would ban local banks closing if local customers need the branches, Jeremy Corbyn has announced.

His party’s manifesto included the promise, which comes less than two months after taxpayer-funded RBS announced the 30 offices would be axed across Scotland, with Fife particularly badly hit.

Anstruther, Cupar, Cowdenbeath, Dalgety Bay, Leven and Kirkcaldy High Street will all close at the beginning of October, as will Stonehaven.

The document, launched in Bradford yesterday, included pledges to stay part of Horizon 2020, the leading research funding programme, and its successor schemes, which would benefit universities such as St Andrews and Dundee.

It rejects a second independence referendum, pledges to pursue federalism and scrap the so-called rape clause, which is part of a cap on child benefit payments.

A series of UK-wide proposals include extending high speed rail to the north of England and onto Scotland, a promise to “safeguard” the North Sea oil industry, and establishing a Scottish Investment Bank, with £20 billion of funds available to local projects and small businesses north of the border.

In total, pledges contained in the “programme of hope” cost £48.6 billion, to be funded from extra tax revenue.

Income tax would increase to 45p for people earning over £80,000, and 50p for those on more than £123,000.

Labour said all the pledges were costed but the Conservatives claimed the sums “don’t add up”.

Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins said : “A vote for Labour would be a vote for chaos as the party tears itself apart and descends deeper into division.”

SNP depute leader Angus Robertson said: “Scrapping hospital parking charges, free tuition, publicly-owned water, ending the bedroom tax, increasing renewable energy and expanding free childcare will all seem familiar to voters in Scotland – because they are already happening under an SNP government.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP added: “Labour won’t provide the competent opposition our country needs.”

Picture: PA. Jeremy Corbyn on stage with Rotherham candidate Sarah Champion at the launch in Bradford of the Labour Party manifesto for the general election.