Anas Sarwar has accused the SNP of operating a “culture of secrecy and cover-up”, as he set out plans to strengthen public scrutiny.

The Scottish Labour leader on Wednesday unveiled his party’s ‘Stronger Holyrood’ paper which seeks to bring about institutional change.

It is the second in a series of papers being published by Scottish Labour which suggest steps that can be taken to reform the current system.

The SNP hit back at the party, describing them as “nothing more than a powerless and pointless branch office” of the Labour Party at Westminster.

In the paper, Scottish Labour that the Scottish Parliament and its government were “supposed to be examples of transparency to build public trust in politics”.

They continued: “In the decades since its foundation, that has unfortunately failed to be the case.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters