Thinktank says main parties not being honest

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said Labour was offering the “pretence” that taxing the rich would pay for massive increases in public spending while the Conservatives were offering no new cash for health and education without acknowledging the potential impact on public services.

Labour’s plans to raise £52bn from tax included £11bn based on “factual mistakes”, according to the IFS, while the Conservatives’ pledge to cut net immigration to fewe than 100,000 people a year would cost the Treasury £6bn annually.

The IFS analysis suggested the Conservatives’ manifesto pledges of money for the NHS and schools amount to little more than continuing spending levels already set out in the last Budget while Labour’s proposals would take public spending to levels last seen in the 1970s.

IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson: “The shame of the two big parties’ manifestos is that neither sets out an honest set of choices. Neither addresses the long-term challenges we face. For Labour we can have pretty much everything - free higher education, free childcare, more spending on pay, health, infrastructure.

“And the pretence is that can all be funded by faceless corporations and ‘the rich’.”

Mr Emmerson said the Conservatives “offer the cuts already promised”.

He continued: “Compared with Labour, they are offering a relatively smaller state and consequently lower taxes.

“With that offer come unacknowledged risks to the quality of public services, and tough choices over spending.”

Mr Emmerson said savings made by Conservative plans to means test the winter fuel allowance and scrapping the pensions triple-lock would be “wholly trivial”.