Education was supposed to be the driving and defining priority of this government. It can't be tossed onto the back burner now.

Today's expert report from Audit Scotland makes uncomfortable reading for John Swinney.

The man entrusted by Nicola Sturgeon to sort of Scotland's education system cannot escape the fact that it is suffering from cuts he made as finance minister.

Today's report lays bare the extent of those cuts. University funding cut, teaching grants slashed, capital funding axed by an eye-watering 69%.

The SNP has spent the past year telling us that education is their top priority. Today's report makes an utter mockery of that. If a government priority suffers tens of millions of pounds of cuts under the SNP heaven help those portfolio areas judged to be of less importance.

At a time when trust in our politics is surely at an all-time low the soaring level of student debt leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

The SNP was elected back in 2007 promising to abolish student debt. Nearly a decade on and not only is that promise smashed into pieces but progress is going in the opposite direction.

Student debt has increased by 14% in the past two years. The average student graduates owing £11,000 in Scotland; that is projected to rise to £20,000 by 2019.

We have seen reports of students approaching pay day lending companies to make it through the month.

In Scotland you are less likely to go straight to university if you come from a poorer background, but if you do get there you are more likely to rack up higher levels of debt through loans.

Can any SNP minister say with a straight face that we have a fair education system when student support is so poor that students are forced to turn to Wonga to get by?

Of course not. Yet rather than "dump the debt" as election leaflets promised, student debt is now the single largest financial asset on the SNP government's books.

It is simply unacceptable that in 2016 a young person's ability to get on in life is still determined by how much money their parents have.

Only a few weeks ago Labour forced a vote to reverse cuts to support for the poorest students. We can make that change because of the powers the Scottish Parliament has. Instead the SNP and the Tories voted against our plans.

Labour will continue to make the case for progressive taxation to protect the education budget and offer better student support to the poorest students.

We believe that education is the single most important economic investment a government can make.

The way to ensure Scotland has a workforce with the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future is to invest in education at every stage, from nursery to higher education and to revive that idea of lifelong learning which worked so well in the early years of devolution.

There should be a political consensus that this is the most important policy issue Scotland faces for the next decade. That should not change given the almost unprecedented political situation we find ourselves in following the EU referendum.

Labour support the efforts of the Scottish Government to work to secure Scotland's place in Europe and we will work constructively with anyone to serve the best interests of the Scottish people in the fallout from the referendum.

But what we cannot stomach and what we will not accept is yet more years of constitutional gridlock distracting from the issues that matter to the everyday lives of people in Scotland -- like jobs, the NHS, and access to education and opportunity.

We have been here before in Scotland. The years leading up to the independence referendum saw problems in our NHS, our education system and our public services brushed under the carpet, we cannot allow that to happen again. Too many young people were robbed of opportunity because of a distracted Scottish Parliament.

Now our parliament has even more powers than before. Faced with the choice between using the powers of our parliament and carrying on with the cuts we can use the powers to stop the cuts.

That is an opportunity, and a responsibility, that Labour will not allow the SNP government to walk away from easily.

Comment by Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader.