Andy Burnham is expected to visit Scotland at the end of this week in what will be seen as an attempt to steal the spotlight from the SNP conference.
Sources say the Prime Minister will arrive on Friday on the eve of John Swinney’s keynote address to his party on Saturday.
An announcement on the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields in the North Sea is overdue, but The Times reports that he will focus on devolution in an attempt to undermine Mr Swinney’s ongoing calls for an independence referendum.
Mr Burnham is a staunch unionist, and delivered an emotional speech to the Labour party conference in Liverpool in which he also rejected Mr Swinney’s claim that he would be the last Prime Minister of the UK. He said the First Minister’s comment had made him “utterly determined to prove him wrong”.
However, critics say he has been slow to make his views on Scotland cleear, offering a muddled response in the Commons on the independence question and saying nothing so far on investment or new powers north of the border.
It is thought, therefore, that this week’s visit will attempt to put down a few markers, starting with an outline for greater devolution along with lines of the mayoral system in England.
The two leaders are also locked in debate over the future of the state pension, with Mr Swinney refusing to back down on his claim that Mr Burnham’s plans to scrap the triple lock would see Scots lose their pensions.
It emerged today that Mr Swinney will not face an investigation over allegations he had misled parliament. In a letter to Kenneth Gibson, Holyrood’s presiding officer, he said his independent advisers on the ministerial code had “concluded that no investigation is required”.
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