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Scottish Labour is still a “significant force” in Scottish politics despite recent election results, a contender for the party’s leadership has said.

The number of MSPs elected for the party has declined in every Holyrood election since devolution, falling to just 17 after May’s vote.

In July, former leader Anas Sarwar was elevated to the House of Lords and made a minister in the UK Government, leading to the contest between North East MSP Michael Marra and South Scotland MSP Joe Fagan.

Speaking to the Press Association as the contest to replace Mr Sarwar entered its final week, Mr Marra played down the importance of next year’s local elections.

“The Scottish Labour Party currently has ministers in the UK Government who are delivering for Scotland on a day-to-day basis and will deliver more in the coming years,” he said.

“We have 37 MPs who are part of that governing party and we have 17 MSPs who are working with them and we have hundreds of councillors right across the country, including leading administrations in different parts of the country.

“We remain a significant force in this country.

“I know that we’ve had a bad result in May, of course we have, on a political level, nobody feels that more keenly than I and my colleagues do.

“But our frustration is that we can’t deliver for communities in the way that we wanted to.”

While the SNP claimed a “handsome victory” in May, Mr Marra does not accept any talk of Labour’s demise north of the border.

Ahead of polls closing in the leadership race on Friday, he said he would practice what he described as “open-door politics” both within the party and Holyrood.

In engaging party members, the North East MSP has said he plans to hold a series of regional meetings, where he will, effectively, take his lead from those on the ground.

But he also said he would be open to working with other parties and the Scottish Government.

“I’ve already gone into rooms with (Deputy First Minister and Finance Secretary) Jenny Gilruth and I’ve set out to her just in recent months to say what we need is a plan to deal with the deficit,” he said.

“We need a realistic plan that can get us from where we are to the stage we’ve got to be, we have to protect the maximum number of jobs and employment within that, we need to deal with the cost of living.

“These are the things people care about and when you have a programme for public service reform, it has to be based in some kind of reality.

“Those are the conversations I’ve had with them I’m prepared to have those conversations and work with the SNP on a range of issues, I always have been.

“The question, I think, is whether the SNP are prepared to deal with us.

“So, I’ll go in with an open heart and open mind to actually working with them on a range of issues, and I think it’s absolutely vital that we do that, but that works both ways.”

While Mr Marra claimed he has always been willing to work with the Government, he was part of the Labour group which opted to abstain on the budget vote in each of the past two years, effectively waving through the Government’s plans without gaining anything in return.

The North East MSP has been the party’s finance spokesman in recent years, but he spoke of his “anger” at the Pisa education results released last week.

The results showed a decline in maths and science among the country’s 15-year-olds between 2022 and 2025, with Mr Marra calling for a complete re-wiring of the system.

“Right from cradle-to-grave, a full re-design of the entirety of our education system,” he said.

“I think nothing less than that is going to matter right now because we see the Pisa results we know we’ve got really big problems in terms of primary school, secondary school, but also our tertiary education, our colleges are effectively bankrupt, we’ve got thousands and thousands of jobs being lost in our higher education and our universities.”

The concept of lifelong learning, he added, is no longer a priority, despite the rapidly changing economy.

“I think we need a fundamental re-design, there are principles that we can carry forward, certainly about equity, about excellence, but we need to look at the whole system and that’s what I want to put in front of the electorate in five years’ time,” he said.

“But I want to see the Government make progress on it now and I’ll be holding them to account on that.”

For both the country and the party, Mr Marra claimed, education has been less of a priority than it should be, as he pledged to put it “at the heart of our politics”.

Polls close in the Scottish Labour leadership race on Friday, with results due on Saturday.