Rishi Sunak repeatedly accused Sir Keir Starmer of plotting a £2,000 tax raid on every British household during their first televised debate of the general election campaign.During the face-to-face clash, the Prime Minister accused Sir Keir of wanting to “saddle people with £2,000 more in taxes”, saying: “Mark my words, Labor will raise your taxes.”
“It’s in their DNA. Your job, your car, your pension. Whatever you call it, the Labor Party will tax it.”
Mr Sunak's statements were based on an analysis commissioned by the Treasury, commissioned by the Conservatives, which examined the costs of Labour's planned policies.
Sir Keir branded the claim “absolute nonsense” as Labor said the cost calculations were based on “cunning assumptions” and contained “glaring errors”.
Here is a breakdown of Labour's plans according to the Treasury:
First, officials outline how much money Labour's current plans would either raise in new tax revenue or save through spending cuts.
The most important challenge is closing the “tax gap” –the gap between the amount of money HMRC expects to receive and what it actually receives.
Labour, a firm favorite of embattled ministers, hopes to raise £5bn by strengthening enforcement . The Treasury estimates this would raise a more modest £3.9 billion a year.
Hitting energy companies with tougher taxes would bring in the next largest amount. Increasing the Conservatives' windfall tax, formally known as the energy profits levy, to 78 percent while scrapping the benefit would raise £1.3 billion a year, the Treasury says.
Next come the schools. Adding 20 per cent VAT to private school tuition costs adds around £1 billion a year, and business rates add a further £120 million.
However, there is considerable uncertainty around these figures. Depending on how many pupils leave private school, a tax raid could raise, for example, £700 million rather than £1 billion.
In addition to a number of smaller measures, including halving spending on consultants and increasing spending on… The Treasury says Labor's plans will raise £6.2 billion a year by 2028-29.
For over four years this would be just over £20 billion.
< p>Then there are spending plans:
Labor has made no secret of its desire to criticize the Conservative leadership of the NHS, despite significant extra spending on health care in recent years.
The Opposition Party has proposed a number of targeted measures it believes will help. Each individually may be difficult to argue against, but the costs add up quickly.
For example, doubling the number of NHS scanners would “equip the NHS with the latest equipment it needs to cut queues and get patients treated again on time,” Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said in 2023.
He said it would “detect disease much earlier and treat it faster, which is better for patients and cheaper for taxpayers.”
The Treasury says the measure will cost up to £1.9 billion. per year.
Other costs of the policy include £950 million a year to bring back the GP and almost £1 billion for an extra two million NHS visits a year.
Taken together, the measures cost as much as £4.5 sterling. billions per year.
Sir Keir's plans for schools and skills are also moving quickly.
The most expensive policy is “fully funded free breakfast clubs in every primary school ”
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said breakfast clubs would help get more children into school and stay there.
The Treasury estimates that if half of pupils took up the scheme, the cost would start at £468m next year, rising rapidly to more than £1.5bn in 2028-29.
The next biggest item is mental health support workers in schools, particularly for children excluded from lessons.
It costs £671 million a year.
Labour skeptical about amounts, mental health.
“The document admits it is failing to take into account the real politics that underpin our commitments ” the party says, noting the Treasury's concession that “there are alternative models for meeting these commitments, such as expanding the provision of advisory support in schools, which have not been costed here.”
The Treasury estimates that the education policy will cost around £2.3 billion a year in total.
From bus timetables to police personnel, the Labor Party has a range of other–expensive–policies in regarding public services.
A major overhaul of local transport, giving local authorities powers to franchise bus services and reinstating canceled routes will cost nearly £900 million a year, the Treasury says.
However, the company admits that the prevalence of “commercially sensitive” data in the industry means there is a “high risk of error” in the forecast.
Meanwhile, the deployment of an additional 13,000 costs police and staff Helpdesk services are valued at just half a billion pounds a year.
Sir Keir has provided something of a spine for his own back with his plans for giant green investments. His big spending plans, which were supposed to demonstrate a commitment to both protecting the environment and creating jobs, have instead run up against a shortage of public funds.
Labor promised to stick to tight borrowing limits, which it has already done. had to cut its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green investment by 2021.
In February, this became a pledge to spend just under £24 billion over the five years of the next Parliament as a whole.
The Treasury estimates this to be uniformly £4.7 billion each year.
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Adding all this to the extra £500 million a year in support for Ukraine, the Treasury calculates the total cost to be £16.2 billion a year.
Over the four years of calculations this amounted to £58.9 billion £20.4bn of promised spending compared to £20.4bn of tax and savings rises.
The Chancellor claims this leaves Labor with a “black hole worth more than £10”. billion a year by 2028-29, or almost £38.5 billion over the next four years.”
Mr Hunt's speech was touted as a chance to draw a dividing line between the Conservatives and Labour. It's more like front lines.
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