Labour’s plan to put 28 billion into green investment would add as much as £20 billion to the national debt, analysis from the Conservative Party has claimed.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he will borrow the money to pay for green initiatives, such as investing in job and energy independence.
But analysis from the Conservatives said the pledge would result in the party spending more money on debt interest and less money on public services.
The payments would amount to £20.44billion over the course of one parliament.
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That is as much as the entire Home Office budget, with the Tories claiming the total cost is the equivalent of more than 400,000 nurses or 88,000 doctors.
But disputing the figure, the Labour party said they had not yet put forward the yearly breakdown.
A Labour spokesman said: “It was the Conservative Party that crashed the economy and left Britain worse off, with the highest tax burden on record and the highest levels of debt since the 1960s.
“Labour’s plan to get our economy growing will cut bills, create jobs and make working people in all parts of the country better off.
“Labour will ramp up to a total of £28billion a year in the second half of the Parliament.
“We will factor in the Government’s current investment on the green transition into our plans.
“Labour will introduce a new set of fiscal rules.
“We will not borrow to fund day-to-day spending and we will reduce national debt as a share of the economy over the course of the Parliament.”
Laura Trott, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, claimed Labour is taking the “easy way out by passing on our debts to our children”.
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She said: “Independent OBR figures show Keir Starmer’s unfunded promise to borrow an extra £28billion every year means Labour will spend more on debt interest and less on public services.
“The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says Labour’s additional borrowing means both ‘potentially increasing inflation, and also drives up interest rates’.
“Rather than taking the easy way out by passing on our debts to our children and grandchildren, Rishi Sunak is taking long-term decisions to get debt falling and build a brighter future for our country.”
