Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer hit the election campaign trail again on Friday amid a growing “lies” row over the Tory claim of a Labour £2,000 tax hike plan.
The Prime Minister was out in the south west while the Labour leader was doing a visit in London, after returning from the D-Day ceremonies in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
But as they set out new policies on child benefit and housing respectively, the tax row grew after the UK statistics watchdog rapped the Conservative claim about Labour’s proposals.
During the first election TV debate on Tuesday, Mr Sunak repeatedly said that if Labour is elected, households would be hit with a £2,000 tax rise.
But the document, on which the Tories base their claim, makes it clear that this total is over a four-year period, not annually.
The Office for Statistics Regulation said: “Without reading the full Conservative Party costing document, someone hearing the claim would have no way of knowing that this is an estimate summed together over four years.
“We warned against this practice a few days ago, following its use in presenting prospective future increases in defence spending.”
Mr Sunak has denied Sir Keir’s accusations that he “lied” over the Tory claim about Labour’s tax plan, and alleged that the latter was “rattled”.
But the Conservatives allegation has been criticised by independent fact checkers and the Treasury’s top civil servant has distanced the Civil Service from the tax dossier which suggested a looming overall Labour tax hit of £38 billion to fill a fiscal blackhole.
Some of the estimated costings in the document were produced by civil servants at the Treasury, using assumptions provided by politically appointed special advisers.
However, the Treasury’s permanent secretary James Bowler said ministers had been told not to suggest civil servants produced the £38 billion figure, which equates to £2,000 a household.
Labour says many of its policies will not cost anywhere near as much as the Conservatives suggested in their dossier.
