Labour would cost every family £1,000 a year more in taxes

TAXES will be £12billion a year higher under Labour than the Tories, independent experts warned yesterday – equal to £1,052 for every working household.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said Ed Miliband’s ‘vague’ promise to balance the books would allow Labour to borrow £90billion more than the Tories by 2020.

This would rise to £280billion in extra debt by the end of the next decade if Labour remained in power.

The think-tank warned that Labour’s failure to control borrowing would leave Britain ‘less well placed to deal with future adverse events’, such as another recession or the costs of an ageing population. But it was also highly critical of the lack of detail in the Conservatives’ plans, saying the party had failed to spell out where it would find tens of billions of pounds in cuts.

In a withering verdict, it said all the main parties were keeping voters ‘in the dark’ about what they would do, adding: ‘None of the parties has provided anything like full details of their fiscal plans for each year of the coming parliament.’

IFS director Paul Johnson said: ‘All the parties have told us where they are going to increase spending on things like health, but none have said much about where the pain is going to fall.’

He said the gap between the parties’ plans was ‘ bigger than any time since 1992’ – giving voters a clear choice between more taxes, spending or borrowing.

Conservative plans require Whitehall cuts of £ 30billion, while Labour could get away with savings of just £1billion.

Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the IFS, added: ‘The electorate has a real choice, although it can at best see only the broad outlines of that choice.’

The IFS said Labour’s plans were broadly compatible with those of its potential post-election partners in the SNP. The Scottish nationalists want to spend an extra £4billion on benefits. But in an unflattering assessment, the IFS said there was a ‘significant disconnect’ between its anti-austerity rhetoric and its plans.

Labour said the think-tank had made ‘ wrong assumptions’ about its plans.

Mr Miliband has promised to balance day-to-day government spending by 2020 – leaving Labour free to continue borrow- ing around £30billion a year for ‘investment’.

By contrast, the Conservatives want to clear the deficit in three years and start paying off Britain’s £1.5trillion debt mountain.

David Cameron said the assessment showed Labour was ‘a risk to our recovery, a risk to our economy, a risk to jobs’.

But the IFS also raised major questions about the Tories’ spending plans.

It said they involved ‘substantial and almost entirely unspecified spending cuts and tax increases’, and warned they could mean ‘further real cuts to unprotected departments of around £30billion’.

Tory plans for £12billion in welfare cuts have also not been spelled out in any detail.

The IFS said the Lib Dems deserved a ‘small tick’ for being the most transparent – although they were also criticised for failure to spell out £12billion of planned spending cuts.

Chancellor George Osborne said: ‘Saving money means taking the difficult decisions so we reduce our debt and keep our economy out of crisis and on an even keel.’

But Mr Balls said: ‘The IFS has confirmed that the Tories are committed to the most extreme spending plans of any political party, with bigger cuts than any other advanced economy in the next three years.’

Nick Clegg said it confirmed the Tories plan a ‘cuts bombshell’, adding: ‘We will cut substantially less than the Conservative plan to cut many public services to the bone and borrow less than the reckless plan from Labour.’

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