The permanent secretary of the UK Treasury, James Bowler, has said that the Conservative Party’s assessment of Labour’s tax plans “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”. In a letter sent to the Labour Party, Bowler said that the calculation of Labour’s £38bn of uncosted spending includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service. Bowler’s letter could damage Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s claim that the plans of the Labour Party would result in £2,000 of tax rises per working household.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of lying. Reeves said that the Labour Party has ruled out increasing the rate of income tax, National Insurance and VAT and has no plans to increase taxes on working people. During Tuesday evening’s debate, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer dismissed the figures as “absolute garbage”.
The Conservatives claim that they were ”fair to Labour” when they produced their briefing note by using only clear Labour policies, their own costings or official HM Treasury costings using the lowest assumptions. However, Bowler reminded ministers and advisers that “any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”.
During the debate, Sunak claimed that Labour’s spending plans would mean “£2,000 in higher taxes for every working family in our country”. The Conservatives came up with the number based on how much they say Labour’s spending commitments would cost, divided by the number of UK households with at least one person working over a four-year period. The claim went unchallenged for about 20 minutes but Sir Keir later called it “nonsense”
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