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The Conservatives came up with the \u00a32,000 figure based on how much they say Labour’s spending commitments would cost, dividing this by the number of UK households with at least one person working. It covers a period of four years.<\/p>\n
During the debate, Mr Sunak suggested the costings had been worked out by impartial civil servants, but they are based on assumptions made by Conservative-appointed special advisers.<\/p>\n
For example, one costing looks at Labour\u2019s plan to have more services provided by the state instead of by private companies and it assumes that private companies are always 7.5% more efficient.<\/p>\n
But the civil servants doing the costings warned they had “low confidence” in the use of that figure.<\/p>\n
Former head of the civil service Lord O\u2019Donnell said costing of opposition party policies was “one of the grubbiest processes I’ve ever been involved in” and that it had been carried out by both Labour and the Conservatives in the past.<\/p>\n
He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “Ministers tell you to produce these costings on some assumptions they give you, which are dodgy assumptions designed to make the policy look as bad as possible.”<\/p>\n
Conservative Treasury Minister Laura Trott denied Mr Sunak had lied and insisted independent analysis had identified a black hole in Labour’s spending plans.<\/p>\n
She said: “This is underpinned overwhelmingly by Treasury analysis so if people think Labour are going to win this election they need to start saving.”<\/p>\n
A Conservative Party spokesperson said: \u201cWe were fair to Labour in the production of the Labour tax rise briefing note and used only clear Labour policies, their own costings or official HMT [HM Treasury] costings using the lowest assumptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: \u201cRishi Sunak\u2019s latest attempts to deceive the British public are nothing new. He has spent years hiking people\u2019s taxes to record levels while claiming to cut them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunak promised to govern with integrity, but has ended up as a pound shop Boris Johnson.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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