Keir’s £28bn spending plan doesn’t add up, says Hunt

SIR Keir Starmer was last night accused of ‘economic illiteracy’ after vowing to go ahead with investing £28billion a year on green policies.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the Labour leader’s figures ‘simply don’t add up’ as Sir Keir pledged to reduce government debt while borrowing the vast sum.

In a major speech on growing the economy yesterday, Sir Keir said his party would be ‘ruthless’ in spending public money ‘wisely’.

And he insisted that Labour’s pledge to spend £28billion a year on green initiatives, such as investing in clean energy, would be sub

ject to the party’s ‘fiscal rules’. He told a Resolution Foundation conference in London that the money ‘will be used to trigger ... investment from the private sector’.

He also said that a Labour administration will not be able to ‘turn on the spending taps’.

But Chancellor Mr Hunt was scathing, saying: ‘It is economically illiterate to say you can meet a fiscal rule to get debt falling while at the same time increasing borrowing by £28billion a year.

‘The sums simply don’t add up. The result of that kind of borrowing splurge would be higher taxes, higher debt interest and lower growth.’