Sunday 10 November 2019 11:25 am | Updated: Sunday 10 November 2019 11:30 am

Conservatives refuse to reveal cost of spending pledges

Tory cabinet members have refused to say how much the Conservatives will pledge to spend as a part of the party’s manifesto.

The party put out figures last night that show a Labour government would spend £1.2tn if elected and would bankrupt the country.

The figure was branded as “fake news” by shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

The Conservatives are now being criticised for not being able to tell the public how much they would spend if re-elected.

It comes as Moody’s downgraded the UK’s credit rating outlook due to “widespread political pressures for higher expenditures with no clear plan to increase revenues to finance this spending”.

Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng was asked on Sky News this morning how much the Tories would spend if they won the 12 December election.

He said: “I’m not going to bandy around figures.”

Chancellor Sajid Javid also refused to give away further details of the Conservatives’ spending plans.

Javid told the BBC: “During this campaign we know exactly what we want to say and when, and I’m going to stick to that.

“I’m not going to get into individual policies today.”

The £1.2tn figure put out by the Tories was from analysis overseen by Javid and was inclusive of the Labour’s 2017 manifesto and policies passed by the party in subsequent party conferences.

The figure also assumes that all of these policies would be implemented on day-one of a Labour government.

Javid said this morning it was “eye watering levels of spending”.

“This is the true cost of Corbyn’s Labour, these are the numbers John McDonnell didn’t want you to see,” he said.

McDonnell said the analysis was: “An incompetent mish-mash of debunked estimates and bad maths cooked up because they know Labour’s plans for real change are popular.”

Shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne told the BBC the figures were an “absolute work of fiction”.