The truth behind Rishi Sunak’s dodgy tax claims during the ITV General Election debate has been revealed – according to experts.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under fireafter repeatedly telling viewers during the ITV General Election debate that Keir Starmer would hit Brits with £2,000 increases. Labour came out swinging, branding Mr Sunak’s claim “lies”.
And independent experts have urged Mr Sunak to come clean about the claims. Tories are accused of producing a dodgy dossier based on assumptions by Conservative advisors, which claims there would be a £38.5 billion black hole in the budget.
It calculates this would mean tax rises of £2,094 for every working household – but Labour dismissed this as “categorically untrue” and likened it to Mr Johnson’s desperate Partygate fibs. It accuses Mr Sunak and co of massively overcooking costs and presenting it as the work of officials, even though it wasn’t.
Mr Sunak said in the debate: “Independent Treasury officials have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for every working family.” But the most senior civil servant in the Treasury today said this was not the case. James Bowler said he had warned ministers not to present the findings as produced by the civil service.
In a further blow to the PM’s credibility, the UK’s official statistics regulator said it is looking into Mr Sunak’s claim. The Office for Statistics Regulation said it is “exploring” whether the PM gave incorrect information.
Labour has lashed out at Rishi Sunak over the tax claims (
Image:ChronicleLive)
What did Mr Sunak claim?
During the ill-tempered head-to-head, Mr Sunak claimed a Labour government would impose £2,000 of taxes on working households. Keir Starmerdismissed this as “nonsense” and “garbage”.
The Prime Minister, who is desperately trying to overturn a massive Labour lead, claimed Mr Starmer would impose “£2,000 in higher taxes for every working family in our country”. He went on: “Labour will raise your taxes – it’s in their DNA. Your work, your car, your pension – Labour will tax it.”
Mr Starmer struck back: “What’s happened here is they put in pretend Labour policies to the Treasury, and then they get a false readout. What they’ve put in for this analysis is a mental health policy that isn’t the Labour Party’s policy, he’s put in one of his own policies. He’s asked the civil service to cost it. They’ve come up with this figure of £2,000.”
What do experts say?
Chris Morris, Chief Executive of fact-checking charity Full Fact, branded the Tories’ conduct as “completely unacceptable. He said Mr Sunak has to be transparent about how he arrived at the figure – more on that below.
Mr Morris said: “It’s clearly unacceptable to present your own analysis as the conclusions of independent civil servants when it’s not. Public trust in politics is hanging by a thread and a high-profile falsehood will turn even more people away from the democratic process. We want to see this corrected as soon as possible.”
Dr Hannah White, director of think-tank the Institute for Government, said it was “very misleading” for the PM to to repeatedly claim his calculations were independent. She said they were “made by Treasury officials on the basis of assumptions given to them by the Government”.
And money saving expert Martin Lewissaid even if the Tory calculations on Labour spending plans are correct – which is in dispute – it doesn’t mean taxes would go up. A Labour Government could raise the required cash in other ways, he said.
Mr Lewis wrote: “So it seems the raise taxes £2,000 line is done by costing the Labour spending proposals and then calculating the impact pro-rata. Now of course even if correct it doesn’t have to come from tax it could be from borrowing etc.”
Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clashed in the ITV General Election debate (
Image:PA)
Civil Servants distance themselves
The most senior Treasury official has said the Tory figures shouldn’t be presented as the work of civil servants.
James Bowler, Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury, said earlier this week that the figures used by Mr Sunak go beyond what officials had found. In a letter to Labour’s Darren Jones he wrote: “As you will expect, civil servants were not involved in the production or presentation of the Conservative Party’s document ‘Labour’s Tax Rises’ or in the calculation of the total figure used.
“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.”
Labour brands it ‘categorically untrue’
Labour said the PM’s statements are a sign of desperation. Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News: “I think last night what was exposed is just how desperate Rishi Sunak has become. Because he lied about Labour’s tax plans. What he said last night about Labour’s tax plans is categorically untrue. Labour will not put up income tax, will not put up National Insurance, will not put up VAT.
“And I think what it showed last night with Rishi Sunak, we saw how desperate he’s become and what desperate people do is they lie. It’s what Boris Johnson did over parties in Downing Street when we were in lockdown. And Rishi Sunak last night proved himself to be no better and no different with these lies.”
Where did the figure come from?
The £2,000 tax rise claim comes from a document produced by the Conservatives. It make a series of assumptions to estimate the cost that might be attached to potential Labour policies.
These include Labour’s green prosperity plan, the creation of school breakfast clubs, buying more NHS scanners and mental health support.
It claimed that the difference between the money that Labour would raise from its policies, and the amount it would spend, would be a deficit of £38.5 billion over four years. But the document admits that if this is correct, it wouldn’t have to be raised by taxes.
The document says that a Labour government would have the option to raise this money by increasing taxes, but alternatively it could borrow to cover the cost. Some of the estimates were carried out by civil servants at the Treasury, using assumptions provided by Conservative Party special advisers. Other calculations were not provided by the civil servants.
Tories are accused of making up costings around Labour plans (
Image:Getty Images)
Why is it wrong?
Labour says the Tories have miscalculated the costs of policies – meaning Mr Sunak’s claim is based on inaccurate figures. Mistakes include the sums it will spend on mental health support teams and dentistry.
Labour also says the estimates used by the Conservatives are based on 42 new neighbourhood health centres after misunderstanding the policy. In fact, it points out, there will be no additional cost as it uses existing facilities.
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It also says the dossier fails to take account of Labour’s actual policy. One example is non-resident stamp duty, which would go from 2% to 3%. It says: “They have failed to include in their policy assumptions Labour’s actual policy, which would see non-resident stamp duty land tax go from 2% to 3%. If they had, they could have simply taken a look at HMRC’s published costings of how much a 1% increase in non-resident stamp duty land tax raises, which is £40m per year by the third year of the forecast.”
The party accused the Tories of making “dubious and questionable assumptions” about bus service improvements. It also says it has overestimated the number of mental health workers it plans to deploy across the country.
And in another scathing response it said: “The document assumes that a Labour government would send in regional improvement teams to all schools below ‘outstanding’, including schools rated ‘good’. This is not our policy.”
