Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak is questioned by ITV host Julie Etchingham during the first election debate on June 4, 2024 in Manchester, England.
London CNN —
The UK Treasury has flatly contradicted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s claim that its impartial officials had calculated that the opposition Labour Party would “put up everyone’s taxes by £2,000.”
Sunak made the claim during a televised debate Tuesday ahead of July’s election, as he and Labour leader Keir Starmer clashed on issues ranging from the cost-of-living and immigration, to the state of the National Health Service.
“Independent Treasury officials have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for every working family,” Sunak said. The Conservative Party leader later repeated the claim.
On the eve of the debate, James Bowler, the most senior civil servant in the Treasury, said officials in his department had not been involved in producing that number, contained in a Conservative Party campaign document.
In a letter dated June 3, a copy of which was posted to X by senior Labour Party official Darren Jones, Bowler wrote that “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.”
The campaign document claims that Labour would have to find £38.5 billion ($49.2 billion) to meet all of its spending commitments, either borrowing the money or raising taxes by “£2,094 per working household over the next four years.”
It states that “almost every costing contained here has been conducted by (the) Treasury.”
In his letter to Labour, Bowler said he had cautioned senior Conservative Party officials and advisers against suggesting that the £38.5 billion figure was based on Treasury analysis.
He said that “any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service,” adding that he had “reminded Ministers and advisers that this should be the case.”
Photo issued by the Labour Party of a letter sent by Permanent Secretary to the Treasury James Bowler to senior Labour Party official Darren Jones.
The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has since investigated Sunak’s comments.
In a statement Thursday, it said it would not comment on whether the £2,000 number was accurate or not, but added that someone hearing the claim — without reading the Conservative Party’s full campaign document — “would have no way of knowing that this is an estimate summed together over four years.”
“We warned against this practice a few days ago,” the statistics watchdog added.
OSR chair Robert Chote had already written to party leaders on Tuesday, urging them to ensure that statistics are used in an “appropriate and transparent” manner during the election campaign and not in a way “that has the potential to mislead.”
Labour says Sunak ‘lied’
Opinion polls, meanwhile, are divided about who won the debate Tuesday. A YouGov snap poll of 1,657 viewers, showed 51% thought Sunak performed better, compared to 49% for Starmer.
But in a poll of 1,153 viewers by market research firm Savanta, 44% gave the debate to Starmer, while 39% voted for Sunak and 17% were undecided.
Bowler’s letter could undermine Sunak’s claim to lead with integrity — a pledge made when he became prime minister in October 2022 — as he battles a high-stakes election.
Opinionpolls suggest the Conservatives are set to be booted from office, with Labour on course to win a UK election for the first time since 2005.
In a statement Wednesday, Labour said Sunak had “lied eleven times to the British people” about the party’s tax plans. “Labour will not raise taxes on working people. It’s the Tories who have made £71 billion of unfunded promises that will mean higher taxes and higher borrowing,” the party wrote in an emailed campaign message.
During the debate Tuesday, Starmer dismissed the £2,000 ($2,560) figure as “nonsense” and said it was based on “pretend” Labour policies.
A Conservative Party spokesperson said that its document on Labour’s tax plans “used clear Labour policies, their own costings or official (Treasury) costings using the lowest assumptions.”
In a statement shared with CNN, the spokesperson added: “It is now for Labour to explain which of the policies which were Labour policy no longer are Labour policy.”
— Luke McGee contributed reporting.
