LABOUR’S Shadow Business Secretary repeatedly refused to put a cost on his party’s spending commitments in an interview with Camilla Tominey on GB News.

Asked about the Conservative claim that his party has £90 billion in uncosted spending commitments, Jonathan Reynolds said: “Well, that’s nonsense.

“So, with the health service, that is funded by scrapping the non-dam rule, the tax regime for the super rich, and our plan for breakfast clubs is funded by the change in taxation regime for education in the UK.

“It doesn’t add up to £90 billion, because that’s the Conservative Party and its researchers trying to make up some figures…there will be increased investment spending under a Labour government.

“That is to leverage in the greater private investment that we need because we cannot continue with an economy with the lowest business investment in the G7 where growth is lower than it should be, even by historical standards in the UK.

“And that is part of our policy, but I reject entirely the Conservative claim.”

Asked what the true figure is, Mr Reynolds said: “I don’t recognise that figure at all. There are no uncosted spending [commitments]….

“I’m telling you there are specific increases in public service revenue spending, we always say where that money would come from, and that is, I can give you specifics for each of those and I reject entirely the Conservative lines they put out that there are any uncosted spending commitments.”

Pressed again, Mr Reynolds said he “didn’t have an aggregate number” he could provide in relation to Labour’s total spending for its proposed pledges.

Meanwhile Mr Reynolds was also asked why the Labour Mayor of London was pressing ahead with the expansion of the ULEZ when the increasing adoption of electric vehicles with rust in cleaner air.

Mr Reynolds said: “The ULEZ policy is a policy for the mayor he’s responsible for clean air in local authorities and combined authorities can be sued if the air quality is insufficient. And part of having directly elected mayors is they can stand and fall by the policies they’re putting forward.

“But I think cleaner air is an essential health issue in the UK. We’ve seen the Government mandate local areas to do it and it’s got to understand if it puts that mandate in place, local areas will respond to deliver that and electric vehicles are cleaner.”

Asked about the party’s plan for more people to work from home, he said: “Let me say this is not the Labour manifesto. This is a process by which we get to the Labour manifesto. It’s a process by which people submit the bits of policy that they’re interested in. There’s a process, there are amendments, there’s deliberation.

“So these are not statements of party policy. I think we do want to see some kind of employment laws that will protect family life, give people some time in order to do the other things that are important in life as well as work. I think that’s been eroded very significantly in recent years.”

Mr Reynolds also addressed the delays many face getting passports and said he refused to blame the civil service. He even claimed he has been regularly stepping in to sort out issues with passports for his constituents and urged
other members of the public to write to their MP if they needed help.

“Many people need to contact their MPs when a public service isn’t working well. And that is certainly my experience of the last few years.

“I’ve had to do quite a lot of passport cases when this has come up. Ministers are accountable in the way they try to blame civil servants, they need to accept some responsibility.”