Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith admits he has no idea why party members laughed when he said Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale was doing a good job.

Mr Smith said his Scottish ally, who has backed his bid to replace Jeremy Corbyn, is "doing a terrific job" in Scotland.

He questioned why a "Labour-supporting audience" were so disparaging about Ms Dugdale.

Mr Smith told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme he has "no idea" why Labour members laughed at his comments at a leadership hustings in Scotland on August 25.

"I thought it was very peculiar for a Labour audience, ostensibly a Labour-supporting audience, to say anything disparaging about the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland," he said.

"I'm incredibly proud to have Kezia's support, I think she's doing a terrific job leading the Labour Party in Scotland."

Mr Smith pledged to "share power more broadly" if elected as Prime Minister - but said decisions on the Scottish-based nuclear fleet should remain reserved.

Ms Dugdale supports the renewal of Trident but was outvoted at Scottish Labour's 2015 conference.

Mr Corbyn opposes renewal, putting him at odds with the majority of Labour MPs including Mr Smith, but his call for a debate at the 2015 UK conference was thwarted by Trident supporters who kept it off the agenda.

Mr Smith said the official UK Labour policy of renewal trumps Scottish Labour's policy of disarmament.

He said: "On something as important as this, that isn't devolved, yes it does.

"Defence isn't devolved. They could make an argument that it ought to be but I don't think they are seriously suggesting that."

He said Scottish voters have turned away from Labour "because people felt that we weren't likely to win in England and Wales", and that "politics, generally, has let people down".

Mr Smith added that with Labour "associated with being in power and being the establishment in Scotland", the vote for the SNP was "reflective of that long-standing sense of decline and loss".

"The antidote to that is Labour both looking like we've got a prospect of winning in England and Wales, and therefore forming a government in Westminster, and having a programme for government in Westminster that would see investment in Scotland, in a new industrial strategy, in sharing power more broadly," he said.

Labour led the Scottish Government in Holyrood's first two terms between 1999 and 2007 before the election of the SNP government, which is currently in its third term.

Ms Dugdale was elected following Scottish Labour's near total wipeout at the 2015 general election when they were reduced to just one MP.

She led Labour to their worst Holyrood election result in 2016, finishing third place behind the Conservatives with her party ranks reduced by a third.