Rishi Sunak mentioned a supposed £2,000 tax increase under Labour around a dozen times (Picture: EPA)
If you were watching last night’s debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, there’s a strong chance one figure stood out to you: £2,000.
According to the Conservatives, that’s the tax hike on every household that would be needed to pay for all of Labour’s plans if they win the General Election on July 4.
The prime minister clearly went into the debate with an aim to mention the number as often as possible – it came up around a dozen times.
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But what is it based on? And more importantly, is it accurate?
Where did the £2,000 figure come from?
To be precise, the figure from the Tories is £2,094.
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It all stems from a document produced by the Conservative Party – not the government – which added up the assumed costs of potential Labour policies.
Essentially, special advisors (or ‘spads’, in the parliamentary lingo) in the party made a big list of policies that have been announced by Labour, or might be announced based on things senior Labour figures have said.
They then handed that list over to civil servants in the Treasury and asked them to work out how much money those ideas would raise and how much money they would cost, while other calculations were made elsewhere.
In the end, the document says Labour would end up spending £38.5 billion more than it would make over a period of four years.
Take that £38.5 billion and divide it by the 18.4 million working households in the UK, and you get… £2,094. Or thereabouts.
The Conservative argument is that the opposition would need to plug that gap somehow, and the most likely course of action they would take is raising taxes.
Will Labour raise taxes by £2,000?
That’s the big question. Last night, Keir Starmer didn’t fight against it particularly strongly at first.
When he did, he said: ‘What’s happened here is they put in pretend Labour policies to the Treasury, and then they get a false readout.’
Starmer also described the figure as ‘absolute garbage’.
Keir Starmer took his time before responding to the figure last night (Picture: EPA)
In a release sent out after the debate, the party listed 10 things they say the Tories got wrong in their ‘tainted dossier’, ranging from allegedly confused costings to several points that they say are not actual Labour policies.
The fact is, we don’t actually know any of those policies for certain yet. The party is yet to release its manifesto and how much its ideas are likely to cost.
Does it matter how accurate the claim is?
Of course, it matters whether what the prime minister says is true.
But his line about the supposed £2,000 tax hike under Labour appears to have made an impression regardless.
According to a YouGov poll conducted immediately after it finished, Sunak won the debate with an extremely narrow margin of 51% to 49%.
That was despite the respondents to the poll saying Starmer came across as more trustworthy, more likeable and more in touch with ordinary people.
They also said the Labour leader performed best in the sections of the debate where they talked about the cost of living, the NHS and education.
The only area where Sunak won, with a lead of 21 percentage points over his opponent? Tax.
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