independent treasury officials have costed labour s policies and they amount to a £2000 tax rights for working family. it looks like now the chief treasury civil servant actually wrote to labour at two days ago saying the conservative assessment of their tax plan should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service. the debate sought the labour leader sir keir starmer challenged over hospital waiting lists among other things. with a rant out of the highlights from that debate, this is our political correspondent ian watson. the first debate of the campaign was a head to head clash between the prime minister and the man who wanted to replace him. if you re still wondering about the key messages they want to hammer home at this election, wonder no longer. this election is all about a choice more of the chaos and division we ve seen for the last 14 years, or turning the page and rebuilding with labour. no one knows what labour would actually do. but you know
keir starmer said they were up this year. well, actually they could both be right here. this is the picture. the number of small boats crossings fell quite dramatically between 22 and 23 but, as you can see here, they are up this year so far. so, some context all of this when it comes to making up your mind. there are a lot more fact checks from bbc verify now on the bbc news website. that was nick ardley talking through some of the elements of that debate. back to our breaking news story, we understand a letter from the chief treasury civil servant has in the last hour or so cast doubt on the conservatives claims of that £2000 tax rise from labour. last night,
independent treasury officials have costed labour s policies and they amount to a £2000 tax rights for working family. it looks like now the chief treasury civil servant actually wrote to labour at two days ago saying the conservative assessment of their tax plan should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service. the debate sought the labour leader sir keir starmer challenged over hospital waiting lists among other things. with a rant out of the highlights from that debate, this is our political correspondent ian watson. the first debate of the campaign was a head to head clash between the prime minister and the man who wanted to replace him. if you re still wondering about the key messages they want to hammer home at this election, wonder no longer. this election is all about a choice more of the chaos and division we ve seen for the last 14 years, or turning the page and rebuilding with labour. no one knows what labour would actually do. but you know what i wou
labour party s policies. but a couple of hours ago the conservatives will have been delighted because there is a debate about labour s tax policy. if in a labour say the figure was a debate. now there is a debate developing about rishi sunak s honesty and that is not good for the prime minister. and cricketing year was on the programme this morning saying that this whole at £2000 tax rise line was signed off by the treasury secretary, at their chief treasury civil servant. and now we see a letter that says it wasn t. that civil servant. and now we see a letter that says it wasn t. that is particularly letter that says it wasn t. that is particularly embarrassing - letter that says it wasn t. that is particularly embarrassing for - letter that says it wasn t. that is i particularly embarrassing for her because she didn tjust make the same attack as rishi sunak, she defended the attack by saying it had been specifically approved by a man who is the permanent secretary at the treasury,
rishi sunak said in the debate that treasury officials have costed labour s policies and they amount to a £2000 tax rise for every working family. claire coutinho went on the rating earlier and said that line was signed off by the chief treasury secretary but the chief treasury civil servant wrote to labour two days ago saying the assessment should not have been presented as having been produced by the civil service. claire coutinho spoke to bbc breakfast earlier saying that the £2000 tax rise figure that was used by rishi sunak against labour in that debate relates to a four year period, not a one year one. all of the proposals have been set up by the labour party and the costings have been done by treasury officials, but when you look at the most most expensive proposals, the green plan, we re probably hugely underestimating the cost to families. and i thought, actually, was very