Jonathan Hordle/ITV
Rishi Sunak’s now infamous £2,000 whopper has made the international press after the Treasury contradicted the claim.
The prime minister suggested that impartial officials had calculated that the Labour Party would increase the tax burden on every household by thousands of pounds during the televised leader’s debate on Tuesday night.
“Independent Treasury officials have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for every working family,” Sunak said during the debate.
But the figure quickly attracted backlash.
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.
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.”
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.
Related: Labour accuses Rishi Sunak of threatening pensioners’ living standards
