The Tories would crash the economy again with their manifesto promises - Rachel Reeves

Our national debt is at its highest level since the 1960s. And, while their rhetoric is about tax cuts, their record is tax rises - 26 tax rises in this Parliament alone yielding the highest tax burden in seventy years.

The Conservatives are gaslighting you. No one will believe their claims. I have been clear throughout my time as Shadow Chancellor: I want taxes on working people to be lower. In the last Parliament, I opposed tax rises and I supported tax cuts, including cuts to National Insurance – but only when they were fully funded.

Labour’s manifesto will contain an iron-clad commitment: there will be no increase in income tax, national insurance or VAT under a Labour government for the duration of the next Parliament. But we will only cut taxes when the money is there. By contrast, the Tories offer promises they cannot fund, from savings they cannot find.

When it comes to the plans in this Tory manifesto, the money is simply not there and it will mean £4,800 more on your mortgage. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and it is irresponsible.

Over the last four and a half hours, we have gone through the Conservative manifesto line by line. They claim their plans are fully costed and fully funded.

But analysis we have conducted since publication has identified £71bn of unfunded commitments over the course of the next parliament.

The consequences of an increase in day-to-day borrowing to fund the commitments made in this manifesto would amount to a second Tory mortgage bombshell because higher borrowing on this scale would force the Bank of England to raise interest rates. The result would be an increase in the average mortgage totalling £4,800 over the Parliament.

I worked as an economist at the Bank of England. I know the importance of sound money, and getting a grip on the public finances. If these Conservative policies are followed through, it poses a real threat to our economy and to household incomes.

We’ve been here before. It was less than two years ago that the Conservatives set out tens of billions of pounds of unfunded commitments. They crashed the economy, sent mortgage costs spiralling, and put pensions in peril. In the end, you got the mortgage increase – but you didn’t get the tax cut and that is exactly what you will get again.

‘Don’t judge 14 years on 49 days’, the Prime Minister says and they should be judged on the record of those 14 years. But the damage done in those 49 days will last for years.

Last year, 6.4 million households across England and Wales saw their rent increase or had to re-mortgage. A further one and a half million households either have remortgaged or will remortgage this year, paying, on average, an additional £240 every single month. And this manifesto is final confirmation, if any were needed, that they have not learned their lesson.

An abridged version of a speech delivered by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.