Penny Mordaunt got into a furious row with BBC host Mishal Husain during the televised General Election debate as a new tax row erupted.
The Conservative Party representative and Lead of the House of Commons was taking part in the BBC’s debate tonight when she accused the Labour Party of wanting to put up tax by £2,000.
The Labour’s Angela Rayner furiously hit back and said that this was a lie.
The figure which was used by Rishi Sunak during his debate with Keir Starmer earlier this week has been refuted by the Office for Statistics Regulation, which said the claim by the Conservatives was „misleading“.
Mishal Husain, who was leading the debate, said Mordaunt was using a figure that has been criticised by the statistics watchdog.
Penny Mordaunt had been answering a question from a member of the audience on the cost of living crisis.
She said: „This election is about the cost of living. What many people are going through is exhausting and we need to bring it to an end.
„The only way to keep the economy going is to get you more money in your pockets…the Labour Party are going to put up your taxes by £2,000 per working household.“
Mordaunt and Rayner quickly fell into an argument before being cut off by Husain and the question passed to Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Green Party.
She said: „You don’t have to be an economist to see our economy is not working for the majority of people.
„Penny is talking about a cost of living crisis, and yes of course, that’s what it is, but you might more accurately describe it as an inequality crisis.
„Because some people in this country have been doing very very well. Some people got substantially wealthier during the pandemic while many of the rest of us struggled.”
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, said the UK needed net migration lowered to zero and tax taken off energy bills. He accused the Conservatives of „pretending“ they are a tax-cutting party is „dishonesty on a breathtaking scale.“