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Sir Keir Starmer has accused Chancellor Jeremy Hunt of “admitting” pledges in the Conservative Party manifesto are “completely unfunded”.

The Tories have set out plans for billions in tax cuts, which the Tories claim would be paid for by £12 billion of savings on welfare.

But Labour say the money has already been spent after it was reported Mr Hunt last week wrote in a newsletter to prospective constituents in Surrey that the tax cuts would be funded by savings from an “enormous back to work programme (which I announced in the Autumn Statement last year)”.

The Conservatives said the back to work programme is not the basis for their £12 billion savings figure, as they accused Labour of being in “complete denial” about increases to the working-age welfare bill.

Labour leader Sir Keir told reporters: “What has emerged this morning is truly extraordinary because what you’ve got is no less than the Chancellor admitting that the money that they were pretending was available in their manifesto for their desperate policies is in fact money that’s already been accounted for. 

“So that means you’ve got a manifesto from the Tories which isn’t worth the paper on which it is written because it is completely unfunded.

“It is extraordinary – the fact that it has come from the Chancellor I think makes it even more extraordinary.”

Shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones said: “This private admission from Jeremy Hunt that the Conservatives’ welfare cuts are not new, the money has been spent, and their plans are therefore unfunded drives a coach and horses through his party’s manifesto.”

At a hastily-arranged press conference in London, shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth put a copy of the Tory manifesto into a shredder, claiming that is what Mr Hunt had done to the Conservatives’ economic credibility.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Unless action is taken, the working-age welfare bill will rise by more than £20 billion a year by the end of the decade.

“Labour is in complete denial about this and don’t think it’s possible to save a single penny from this unsustainable rise.

“We don’t think that’s right, which is why have set out how we would save £12 billion from the welfare bill by the end of the next parliament, including by controlling spending on health and disability benefits and taking people’s benefits away after 12 months if they don’t accept a job.

“Keir Starmer’s refusal to even think about tackling this problem would mean one thing: higher taxes.”

Nigel Farage has said “all change is problematic” when asked about his party’s economic agenda and that it is “Absolute nonsense” that Reform UK plans would create a larger tax burden than Labour.

Reform UK leader Mr Farage has responded to claims from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that the economic plan in the Reform UK manifesto is problematic and their funding estimations are out by tens of billions of pounds.

Mr Farage said: “Change is problematic. If you want to change things radically, it’s always gonna be problematic.

“We’re the only party putting forward really radical ideas and this is what we’re going to campaign for over the course of next five years, and we think everything we put in that document is to help those at the lowest end of the income scale or those trapped on benefits.”

On tax Mr Farage said: “The ambition of this is to reduce the tax burden and to stop people doing jobs, staff nurse paying 40% tax, eight million people paying 40% plus taxes in a couple of years time, that’s what we’re trying to address.

“And we’re not going to address it without growth, and we ain’t gonna get growth unless we incentivise men and women to set up their own businesses and be successful.”

Read more here: Nigel Farage vows to fix 'broken Britain' as he launches Reform UK election 'contract'

The Tories said Labour’s ban on new oil and gas licences could lead to an estimated £4.5 billion in lost tax revenues over the next 10 years, though Sir Keir’s party dismissed this as “more desperate nonsense”.

Keir Starmer says Labour "will have a child poverty strategy" but cannot say when it will be developed.

He says it was a "tough decision" to not commit to scrapping the two-child benefit cap but cannot "make commitments that are unfunded".

He added Labour will "drive child poverty down".

On whether Reform UK’s spending pledges would result in cuts to public services, Mr Farage said: “Well cuts to the public sector, I mean, frankly, they’re never in the office anyway are they? It’s work from home, pop into Whitehall a couple of days a week.”

Mr Farage added: “Some of these things we’re proposing are tough but, look, the accumulated national debt is now £2.7 trillion, it was just under £1 trillion when the Tories came to power, we simply cannot go on like this.

“We’re skint. Who else would dare say that in this campaign? We’re skint, we’re in real trouble and the nonsense of economic argument we hear from Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt never acknowledges the fact that both of them expected to be in deficit next year by yet another £100 billion.

“So we’re saying let’s face reality, we have to have a slimmed down public sector, we have to do that whilst maintaining services.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage: “It’s radical, it’s fresh thinking, it’s outside the box, it’s not what you’re going to get from the current Labour and Conservative parties who are virtually indistinguishable, frankly, from each other.

“Is this radical fresh thinking on economics? Yes. Is it radical fresh thinking on constitutional change? Yes. 

“Britain is broken, Britain needs reform, that’s what we’re here for, that’s what we’re trying to do, and Richard has also suggested some very interesting, radical changes to pay for it.”

Reform UK chairman Richard Tice acknowledged there are spending costs before adding: “But we also outline all of the savings.”

Sir Keir Starmer said that reports Rishi Sunak is being urged “go for the jugular” and launch more direct personal attacks against him for his campaign show that the Tories are “desperate”.

The Times reported that Cabinet ministers and senior Tories are urging the Prime Minister to launch “personalised attacks” on Sir Keir over his support for Jeremy Corbyn, his decision to campaign for a second referendum on Brexit and his work as a human rights lawyer.

Sir Keir told reporters: “That’s all they’ve got left after 14 desperate years. You get to to the last weeks and their only thing they’ve got left is to attack me personally, I think that tells you everything.”

“If they had a record to stand on, they would go into the final two weeks saying these are the brilliant things we’ve done but they haven’t got a record to stand on and if they said they’d done brilliantly people would laugh at them.”

He added: “This is desperate.”

The Labour leader said he was "really shocked" at the footage and told reporters in Southampton he agreed with LBC listeners that it amounted to animal cruelty.

Read more here: 'Shocked' Keir Starmer accuses police of 'animal cruelty' after runaway cow rammed five times with squad car

Michael Cashman has lost the whip over comments he made about Labour candidate Rosie Duffield being "lazy and frit" after she cancelled hustings for fear of her own safety.

The former Member of the European Parliament and Labour national executive committee chair, who became a peer in 2014, apologised for his remarks.

His comments have since been deleted.

Labour candidate for Canterbury Ms Duffield is a defender of women’s rights and female-only spaces She said her attendance at local hustings was “impossible” because of “constant trolling”.

Sir Keir Starmer told reporters that Lord Cashman's words were "particularly inappropriate and that’s why the support of the whip was withdrawn as it was very swiftly.

Nigel Farage says Reform UK want to make a "genuine change for a better brighter and stronger future."

The Reform UK leader has pledged to "stop small boats in 100 days" and save the UK £30bn a year by "scrapping net zero and related subsidies."

He ended his speech by saying "our real ambition is the 2029 general election but this is our first big push."

Read more here: Nigel Farage vows to fix 'broken Britain' as he launches Reform UK election 'contract'