Labour: 11 glaring mistakes in the Tory’s tainted dossier

11 glaring mistakes in the Tory's tainted dossier 

1. The costings rely on “Assumptions from Special Advisors”, rather than an impartial Civil Service assessment. 
   
   
2. Mental health support teams: The document acknowledges they have not costed the actual policy that sits behind our commitment: “there are alternative models to deliver this commitment, as expanding the provision of counselling support in schools, which have not been costed here.” 
   
   
3. Dentistry: the costing includes the costs of a “golden hello” scheme. We did call for this, leading to a welcome change when the government adopted our policy. The government do not appear to be aware that this is their own policy. 
   
   
4. 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs: The costing includes Barnett consequentials. This is incorrect, as the policy is funded by reallocating funding, meaning Barnett consequentials are not triggered. 
   
   
5. Neighbourhood health centres: The document assumes we will be setting up 42 new hubs over and above existing facilities and infrastructure. This is not our policy. Our plans have no additional cost. We will ask Integrated Care System providers to identify opportunities to use the existing estate to provide Neighbourhood Health Centres. 
   
   
6. Insourcing: The officials flag they have “low confidence” in the assumption that outsourced services are more efficient as “the difference between the cost of outsourcing and in-house delivery is highly circumstance specific.”   
   
   
7. Bus Service Reform: alongside dubious and questionable assumptions, the costing includes a frank admission that “The analysis in this costing has been done at pace with limited data and, therefore, the uncertainty and risk of error is high.” 
   
   
8. Halving the number of consultants: Those costing the policy concede that they do not “monetise the potential benefits of reducing consultancy spending.” 
   
   
9. Non-resident SDLT: They have failed to include in their policy assumptions Labour's actual policy, which would see non-resident stamp duty land tax go from 2% to 3%. If they had, they could have simply taken a look at HMRC's published costings of how much a 1% increase in non-resident stamp duty land tax raises, which is £40m per year by the third year of the forecast. This would have saved a lot of civil servant time that would have been better spent improving the country.
   
   
10. Mental Health Workers: They have assumed we will put a youth worker in every A&E suite, and a mentor in every Pupil Referral Unit across the entire country full-time. This is not our policy.  Our policy is a pilot of both approaches. 
    
    
11. Regional Improvement Teams: The document assumes that a Labour government would send in regional improvement teams to all schools below ‘outstanding', including schools rated ‘good'. This is not our policy. 

A Labour spokesperson said:  

“This is another desperate attempt by the Tories to deflect from their £46 billion unfunded tax plan that will lead to higher borrowing, higher taxes on pensioners or the end of the state pension as we know it.  

“All of Labour's policies are fully costed and fully funded. Unlike the Conservatives who crashed the economy, Labour will never play fast and loose with the public finances.

 “Jeremy Hunt would be better spent getting Rishi Sunak to confirm the date of the election, rather than putting out any more of these dodgy dossiers.”