Thursday, 26 Dec 2024

6 reasons not to trust the Tories’ ‘£1.2trillion Labour spending’ dossier

One point two trillion pounds.

That's what the Conservative Party say Labour will cost the country in extra borrowing and spending in five years.

Except Labour say it's a "ludicrous piece of Tory fake news" – "an incompetent mish-mash of debunked estimates and bad maths".

So exactly how trustworthy is today's 35-page spending dossier, which Tory researchers cooked up after a plan to make Treasury civil servants do it was blocked?

Labour make no secret of the fact they'd make a massive investment in infrastructure – they've pledged £400bn over a mix of five and ten years.

And they have many more policies that would cost the Exchequer money.

But many of the details the Tories have looked at are misleading, debunked or just plain wrong.

And of course, they have completely ignored money that will be raised from Labour's plans to tax the highest 5% of earners more.

Here are 6 examples from the document that show you should take it with a bucket of salt.

1. Nationalising rail, mail, water and energy

TORY CLAIM: Renationalisation: cost £196bn

REALITY: The CBI claimed Labour ’s plans to nationalise rail, mail, energy and water would cost £192bn. But it then admitted an error in costings, as Labour hadn’t pledged to buy trains on Britain’s railways. It did not take potential economic benefits into account.

2. The 2017 manifesto

 

TORY CLAIM: Manifesto commitments: cost £600bn

REALITY: The 2017 Labour manifesto put the bill at £50bn a year – or £250bn over five years – although party insiders admit they probably underestimated the cost of major reforms and there wasn’t much detail on capital spending. The Tories have double counted some aspects.

3. Scrapping private schools

 

TORY CLAIM: Abolishing private schools: cost £35bn

REALITY: While this was a motion passed at conference, party insiders claim it won’t appear in the manifesto. Labour claims it would actually raise more tax from private schools by abolishing their charitable status.

4. The four-day week

 

TORY CLAIM: 32-hour working week: cost £85bn

REALITY: John McDonnell has made clear this is an aspiration for the next decade, rather than compulsory for either public or private sector. The idea would be to boost productivity. But the Tory analysis assumes it would be introduced on day one of a Labour government.

5. High Speed 2

 

TORY CLAIM: HS2 to Scotland: cost £43bn

REALITY: Labour wants to extend the railway North of the Border. But if it happens at all, it won’t be for a very long time. HS2’s second phase, to Manchester and Leeds, is scheduled to finish in 2035-2040. Well outwith the Tory analysis for the “next five years”.

TORY CLAIM: Universal Basic Income pilot: cost £4.5bn

REALITY: The Tories have simply multiplied the suggested £50pw by the total number of adults in Liverpool, Sheffield and Birmingham. But a pilot of a welfare programme is likely to focus on a small cohort – not every single adult in three major cities at once. They have not factored in possible lower spending on other benefits.

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