Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer were at the centre of a furious row on Wednesday over a disputed Tory claim that households would be hit with a £2,000 tax hike if Labour wins power.
The Tories ramped up this tax attack on Labour after the first TV debate showdown between Mr Sunak and Sir Keir on Tuesday night.
The Prime Minister was widely seen as having landed a blow on the Labour leader in the tax row after the latter took a while to strongly refute it.
But by Wednesday morning the spotlight was shifting onto the truth, or not, of the Prime Minister’s central line of attack in the ITV debate showdown.
Labour put out a letter from the Treasury’s top civil servant, James Bowler, revealing that ministers had been warned that any “costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service”.
The figures for the Tories’ dossier alleging a £38 billion tax hit on the country from a Labour government were, at least partially, based on calculations done by Treasury civil servants, though this is understood to have been at the request of Tory special advisers.
But Mr Bowler stressed that civil servants were not involved in the calculation of the £38 billion total figure.
Labour dismissed the Tories’ publication on its tax plans as a “lie”, saying it includes policies which it was not planning to bring in, or not on the scale proposed.
Independent fact checkers also disputed the Conservative claims.
After details of Mr Bowler’s letter emerged, consumer champion Martin Lewis pushed Cabinet minister Claire Coutinho to apologise live on TV over the claim of a £2,000 tax hike on households if Labour won the election.
The Money Saving Expert challenged the Energy Security Secretary about the tax allegation when she appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
He said: “That is a slap down from the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. You have been on television elsewhere this morning defending this, and saying these are Civil Service numbers and that they were not by political advisers — is it time to apologise?”
She responded: “No, absolutely not. What the letter says is that you can look on gov.uk and costings are done by Government departments, the Treasury, and those are official costings.”
Mr Bowler acknowledged the role of civil servants in making calculations of Labour’s purported plans, stressing this was done following established guidance set out in the Directory of Civil Service Guidance.
In his letter, replying to one from shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, he added: “In your letter you highlight that the £38bn figure used in the Conservative Party’s publication includes costs beyond those provided by the Civil Service and published online by HM 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.”
Earlier, Ms Coutinho had gone on the offensive over the tax row after Mr Sunak repeatedly claimed a Labour government would mean £2,000 tax rises on housesholds. She told BBC Breakfast: “One of the things that was most worrying is that the £2,000 in extra tax rises that his proposals would mean for working families, he simply could not rule it out.”
Only “very late in the day” did Sir Keir dismiss the claim as “garbage”, she added, claiming: “He must have had a frantic text at some point from one of his advisers.”
In a sign that Labour believes that the Prime Minister landed a blow on Sir Keir with the tax attack, shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth was sent out on the airwaves to counter it.
Appearing on Sky News, he immediately condemned the £2,000 claim as a “desperate lie”.
“What he said last night about Labour’s tax plans is categorically untrue. What desperate people do is they lie,” he said, with the Tories trailing Labour by more than 20 points in polls.
ITV said Tuesday night’s debate was watched by an average of five million viewers, including those tuning in on streaming service ITVX.
