Tackling the cost of living crisis will be front and centre of the Scottish government's plans for next year  the first minister has said

Nicola Sturgeon will set out her agenda for the year when Holyrood returns from summer recess on Tuesday

It comes as households prepare for an 80% increase to energy bills this October

Scottish Labour has called on the government to introduce a law to protect people in financial hardship

Meanwhile the Scottish Conservatives said Ms Sturgeon had failed to deliver on last year's promises

*How rising prices are affecting people in Scotland

*Firms facing 200% price hikes 'are the lucky ones

*I have cancer and can't afford to heat my home

The Programme for Government will be published on Tuesday, the same day the new prime minister takes office

Ms Sturgeon said the steps she will outline will build on measures to support household budgets, including the Scottish Child Payment, the Carers Allowance Supplement and the Council Tax Reduction Scheme.

However she claimed the UK government had been in hibernation as a result of the leadership contest

She said: Their inaction has caused huge anxiety for families and huge uncertainty for businesses. It has been a dereliction of duty which people will neither forgive nor forget At this most crucial of time we are in the situation of announcing our plans for the year ahead in an unprecedented cloud of Westminster uncertainty

We don't know if and when an emergency budget may happen, whether Scotland's block grant is going to be cut this year, or what other measures they may introduce all of which could fundamentally affect our plans

The first minister said she would seek to work constructively with the next prime minister, despite having traded attacks with both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak throughout the campaign

She also claimed an independent Scotland could have passed an emergency budget, adding  Instead we are

left wrestling with meeting the challenges of fair pay, household hardship and rising costs for public services without the tools we need to tackle them.

Issues that matter

Scottish Labour has called on the government to introduce an emergency Cost of Living Act.

The legal changes the party wants to see include a temporary rent freeze a ban on winter evictions and changes to laws on debt including fairer rules on earnings, arrestment and bankruptcy fees.

Scottish Labour's Neil Bibby said every party had a moral duty to back the plans

He added: Scots expect their Parliaments to be focused on the issues that matter and their governments to use every power they have but both the SNP and the Tories are asleep at the wheel.

Scottish Conservative Chairman Craig Hoy MSP said Ms Sturgeon had failed on a number of commitments including drug deaths, police funding and free school meals

.He said The Scottish people want and deserve a government that focuses on their priorities. Instead, Scotland has to suffer an SNP administration which is obsessed with its own self-serving

 goal of breaking up the uk .