Rishi Sunak rocked by bombshell letter that torpedoes his tax dossier claim

05 June 2024 , 12:50

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Rishi Sunak has been caught out making a misleading statement (Image: PA Media)

Rishi Sunak has been rocked after a bombshell letter revealed he misled viewers in the ITV General Election debate.

During the head-to-head clash with Keir Starmer, watched by over 4.8million viewers, the PM claimed "independent" civil servants had crunched the numbers on Labour plans. He asserted that working households would be saddled with an extra £2,000 in taxes if Mr Starmer becomes PM.

This was dismissed as an "outright lie" by Labour, which accuses the Tories of cooking the numbers. During last night's debate, Mr Sunak said: "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 revealed this was not the case. James Bowler said he had warned ministers not to present the findings as being produced by the civil service.

Treasury chief James Bowler warned ministers not to pretend figures were compiled by officials

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.

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In a letter to Labour's Darren Jones, Mr Bowler wrote that civil servants were "not involved in the production or presentation" of a Tory dossier making the tax claims. In a paragraph that could haunt the PM, he said he'd warned politicians not to pretend they were.

He wrote: "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. I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case."

Mr Sunak claimed independent analysis of Labour plans - including breakfast clubs, mental health support and bus service improvements - revealed there'd be a £38.5billion black hole. But Labour says the Tories make a string of mistakes that inflated this figure.

Labour's shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth told LBC the Conservatives "have been caught red-handed lying to the British public". He added that Mr Sunak's election strategy appears to be to "lie through his teeth".

The Labour frontbencher said: "This has now become about Sunak's character and the clear evidence not just that he is hopeless at his job, but a desperate liar." 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.

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.

Lord Gus O'Donnell, who was Downing Street press secretary during the John Major years and permanent secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, wrote on X/Twitter: "Getting civil servants to cost opposition polices in run-up to election needs to stop.

"In (the) past both parties have done it. It is an unsavoury practice as assumptions provided by special advisers are biased to make party political scoring points. (The) next government should not do it."

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."

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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".

Dave Burke