Starmer accuses Sunak of breaching ministerial code over £2,000 tax increase ‘lies’

Sir Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of breaking the ministerial code and lying by claiming Labour would increase taxes on each working family by £2,000.

The tax row dominated the fallout from the hour-long ITV debate on Tuesday night, which saw Mr Sunak go on the attack over the £2,000 tax increase claim.

The Labour leader did not initially reject the allegation during the early debate, but eventually called it “absolute garbage” and “false” as Mr Sunak kept pressing the point.

On Wednesday morning Labour went further and stronger in their rejections, dubbing Mr Sunak a “liar” and claiming he was misleading the public like Boris Johnson on partygate.

But the Tories doubled down on their estimate, saying Labour had not adequately explained why they were wrong.
Indeed the Conservatives even claimed the real figure could be higher, since it did not include Labour “aspirations” such as raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.

The Labour leader said claims made by the Prime Minister in the head-to-head debate ahead of the July 4 general election were “a flash of his character”.

Speaking to LBC Radio in Portsmouth, Sir Keir said: “He breached the ministerial code because he lied. And he lied deliberately, because we have made clear that our plans are fully costed, fully funded, they do not involve tax rises for working people.

“So that’s no income tax rise, no national insurance rise, no VAT rise. And the Prime Minister with his back against the wall, desperately trying to defend his awful record in office resorted to lies and he knew what he was doing, he knew very well what he was doing.”

He added: “What you saw last night was a Prime Minister with his back against the wall desperately trying to defend 14 years of failure, resorting – and it was a flash of his character, an insight into his character – to lies. I don’t say that lightly.”

The Labour Party’s Twitter feed deployed similar attacks. One showed a picture of Mr Sunak with the caption: “He would lie to you. He has lied to you. He is lying to you.”

But Conservative Party figures argued that Labour, despite labelling the claim as a “lie”, has not set out a detailed explanation for the estimated gap in spending.

Laura Trott, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “We have tried to be extremely reasonable in these assumptions and very, very transparent in terms of how they were put across.”

The row is based on a Tory claim that Labour has made £38.5 billion in unfunded spending pledges, the equivalent to £2,094 per working household over the next four years.

The figure was contained in a “Labour tax rises” dossier produced by Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, a few weeks ago.

It saw Treasury officials cost Labour spending promises, with Tory special advisers setting the assumptions.

It emerged on Wednesday that the Treasury’s permanent secretary told Labour that Tory claims about the opposition’s tax and spending plans “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”.

Warning over claims

Mr Sunak had repeatedly said in the debate that the Treasury had costed the figures. But James Bowler, the Treasury’s top civil servant, said in a June 3 letter to Labour that he had told ministers to be careful about how they presented the work done by his department.

Mr Bowler said in response to a letter sent by Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury: “I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service. I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case.”

It also emerged that the Office for Statistics Regulation is looking into the Tory claims.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We are completely confident in the numbers produced in the document published. Twenty-one of the 27 costings are official opposition costings conducted by independent Treasury officials and published on their website; three are official government figures; two are the Labour Party’s own costings and one is from a report by a publicly quoted investment bank.

“These are low-end estimates and, even factoring in the tax rises the Labour Party has formally committed to, there is still a £38.5 billion funding gap in their policies, which would mean £2,094 of tax rises for every working household.

“It is now for the Labour Party to explain whether they have changed or dropped these policies or whether they have dropped their fiscal rules.”

On Wednesday night Labour hit back with figures of their own, accusing the Tories of planning to hit millions of pensioners with a £740-a-year tax bill to pay for the abolition of National Insurance.

Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, published the research which was carried out by the House of Commons Library. It found that covering the cost of scrapping National Insurance – a long-term Tory ambition – would require an 8 per cent rise in income tax, which is paid by pensioners on earnings above £12,570.

The state pension now takes up £11,500 of the tax-free allowance, meaning most retirees with private pension pots would be hit by a rise.

Mr Jones said: “Under out-of-control Tory spending plans, pensioners will see their taxes rise by £738 a year. Pensioners can’t afford more Liz Truss style economic management.”