Labour plans £1,600 grant for teenagers

Outlining a raft of policy proposals, he added that Labour would also build more social housing and double the number of classroom assistants in Scotland.

Murphy said his future fund would be paid for from changes to tax relief on pensions in the event of a Labour government at Westminster after May, which would result in an extra £200m for Scotland.

“We have always said that the opportunities enjoyed by those who get to university shouldn’t come at the expense of those who don’t,” he said. “In higher education in Scotland a young person gets an average of £1,600 spent on their fees.

“But what of those thousands who don’t go to university, or who don’t gain similar investment from the nation through college or an apprenticeship? They shouldn’t get left behind.”

The MP, whose family moved to South Africa when he was a child, also announced a plan to create new scholarship in honour of Nelson Mandela for students from sub-Saharan Africa to study in Scotland.

Earlier, party members backed a change in Scottish Labour’s constitution, stating that the party would always work “in the patriotic interest of the people of Scotland”. Murphy said the changes would create a “more confident and powerful Scottish Labour party”, adding that the days where people believed decisions were taken elsewhere in the UK were “gone for good and not coming back”.

With polls putting the SNP on course for sweeping gains in May’s election, he claimed that voting for the nationalists would help David Cameron cling to power and lead to a decade of austerity for the UK.

He told activists: “There’s only one organisation that can save David Cameron in Scotland. That’s the SNP. The fact is that any seat that the SNP take from the Labour party is an enormous step towards David Cameron clinging on to power in Downing Street in May.”

Murphy, who was elected Scottish Labour leader in December, added: “This is the closest election in my lifetime, the votes of Scotland will matter in a remarkable way in this election.

“All the recent polls shows it is all within the margin of error. So let’s make sure that Scotland never becomes the error in David Cameron’s margin.”

He recalled how Scots had not returned a single Conservative MP in the 1997 election, in which Tony Blair swept to power as he urged voters: “Let’s come together with a sense of pride and determination and let’s not inflict another Tory government and austerity on ourselves or the whole of the rest of the United Kingdom.

“If we don’t stand up to Tory austerity no one else will. If Scotland doesn’t help prevent Cameron from getting into Downing Street, think of what it means for those families struggling to get by on food banks.”

Leader’s red card

Jim Murphy has promised to talk less about football and give other issues a fair kick after a stranger on a train warned him that his obsession with the game is turning off voters.

Since becoming Scottish Labour leader, the MP has made much of his plans to drop the ban on drinking alcohol in football grounds and to overturn anti-sectarian football legislation — when he is not being seen wearing a football strip or playing keepy-uppy.

Helen Miller of Glasgow blew the whistle on his behaviour in a note she handed him on a train to Glasgow, arguing that his approach was “alienating”. In a YouTube video, Murphy agreed to Miller’s call.