Starmer says Sunak ‘breached ministerial code’ over £2,000 Labour tax-rise claim
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of deliberately lying when he claimed Labour’s spending plans would increase taxes by £2,000, saying the prime minister’s tactics during Tuesday night’s TV debate showed he was dishonest when put under pressure.
Amid an increasingly bitter and personal war of words over the standout dispute in the debate, the Labour leader said he believed Sunak should be investigated for breaching the ministerial code.
“What you saw last night was a prime minister with his back against the wall, trying desperately to defend an awful record in office, resorting to lies,” Starmer said in a round of media interviews during a D-day-related visit to Portsmouth’s historic dockyard.
“He knew very well what he was doing. He lied about our plans. And that is a true test of character. As we go to the polls it is important for voters to know about the character of the two individuals who want to be prime minister.”
He added: “The prime minister revealed his character last night – someone who resorts to lies when he’s under pressure.”
Asked if he believed Sunak had breached the ministerial code and if he would back an investigation, Starmer replied: “Yes, he breached the ministerial code because he lied.”
The election, he said, was “a choice between chaos and division, and now lies on top of it”.
Sunak repeatedly said during ITV’s head-to-head debate with Starmer that “independent Treasury officials” had costed Labour’s policies “and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for everyone”.
Labour has heavily disputed the figure for a variety of reasons. On Wednesday, a letter emerged from James Bowler, the Treasury’s permanent secretary, in which he said ministers should not suggest civil servants had produced the figure.
In a letter to Darren Jones, the shadow Treasury chief secretary, sent on Monday but not mentioned by Starmer in the debate, Bowler said the document “includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service”.
He wrote: “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.”
Starmer, who went for a trip around the harbour in a D-day-type landing craft with passengers including Len Chivers, a second world war veteran, dodged questions about whether he had known about Bowler’s letter before the debate, and if he had been too slow to rebut Sunak’s repeated use of the figure.
“What matters is the facts. All of our plans are fully costed or fully funded,” he said.
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Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary and one of Sunak’s closest allies, had earlier doubled down on the attack, saying the figure came from “official costings from the Treasury”, filled with “brilliant, independent civil servants” who would “not be putting anything dodgy” in the costings briefing.
When asked whether the Treasury had calculated the figures based on “assumptions from special advisers”, Coutinho told BBC Breakfast: “If I could just push back on that, because I’ve worked in the Treasury and I can tell you that these are brilliant, independent civil servants and they would not be putting anything dodgy in there. These are all policies that have been set out by the Labour party and actually, if anything, they are underestimating the cost to families.”
She later clarified the tax rise would be “over the course of parliament. It’s £2,000 over four years”, when speaking to Today on BBC Radio 4.
In his media interviews in Portsmouth, Starmer again rejected the claim, saying: “All of Labour’s plans are fully costed and fully funded. They do not involve tax rises for working people.”
Asked about inheritance tax, Starmer said: “We have no plans to raise inheritance tax. In fact, none of our plans involve tax rises over and above the ones we’ve spelled out because all of our plans are fully costed and fully funded.
“But it is very important that I get across that we will not be increasing tax on working people, so no increase in income tax and national insurance or VAT.”