£96billion tax raid to pay for Burnham’s big spree as Tories claim PM’s pledges will cost families an extra £4,300 a year: ‘He’s writing cheques the public can’t cash’

Andy Burnham has been accused of planning a £4,300-a-year ‘tax bomb’ on working families thanks to his massive no-cost spending spree.

The new Prime Minister is facing allegations that he is ‘writing checks the British people can’t cash’ by delivering on £96bn of policy commitments.

There are fears Mr Burnham’s hugely expensive proposals will cost families an extra four-figure tax bill. There is no explanation for how the Prime Minister’s plans will be paid for, a damning dossier compiled by the Conservatives has warned.

The analysis is based on a series of promises announced by the Prime Minister in his first week in power, as well as his plans for the future. It is estimated to cost £96bn in total.

When he took office last week, Mr Burnham outlined a series of headline-grabbing policies that critics have already warned would cost £1.7bn.

This included promises to cut VAT on electricity bills, impose a £2 cap on bus journeys, end rough sleeping and cut business rates for pubs and music venues.

Mr Burnham immediately faced allegations that many of the commitments were not funded.

This week the Prime Minister is expected to announce his costliest commitment yet; it was a promise to tackle the crisis in adult social care, which is expected to cost £18bn.

Worse still, the Conservatives accused the Prime Minister of committing to future cost-free measures worth up to £76bn as part of his ten-year plan.

These include:

• £18.8bn in council house construction;
• £22.7bn to bring Thames Water under public control;
• £14.1bn in future defense spending;
• £12.4bn in freezing income tax personal allowances;
• £8bn increase for foreign aid.

Mr Burnham is under particular pressure to meet defense spending because the new Chancellor, John Healey, resigned from the previous government after refusing to meet Sir Keir Starmer’s bill to improve the Armed Forces.

This includes a £5bn defense spending gap on existing commitments and an additional £10bn to meet the 3 per cent target for future defense spending, a firm commitment from Mr Burnham’s government.

The new Prime Minister also made clear that Thames Water should come into public ownership.

Mr Burnham is under particular pressure to meet defense spending because the new Chancellor, John Healey (right), resigned from the previous government after Sir Keir Starmer refused to meet the bill to modernize the Armed Forces.

Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Burnham’s plans amounted to ‘writing checks that the British people cannot cash’.

And he has repeatedly stated that he will look at eliminating income tax thresholds in the fall.

Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Burnham’s plans amounted to ‘writing checks that the British public cannot cash’.

He added: ‘Andy Burnham has spent his first week proving he has a complete lack of a plan, facing a series of unfunded spending commitments totaling a £96bn tax bomb.

‘Families up and down the country, already facing a record tax burden, now face the prospect of huge tax increases.’

Mr Burnham sought to begin his premiership with a series of positive announcements; It started with a plan to remove VAT on electricity bills and save households £45; The scheme would be funded by the scrapping of Sir Keir’s plans for digital ID cards.

But the announcement was canceled soon after Darren Jones, the former Cabinet minister responsible for the digital plan, revealed that the project had not been funded in the first place.

This left an £850m black hole in Mr Burnham’s plans on his first day in office.

Later, a plan to cap bus fares at a cost of £450 million also appeared to backfire, with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander admitting funding details had ‘not been worked out’.

There were also questions about paying for the Prime Minister’s £340 million rough sleeping programme. Mr Burnham was also hit by rising government borrowing costs last week.

Cameron Brown, a former Treasury adviser and partner at Buxlow Advisory, described Mr Burnham’s opening week as an ‘open-mouthed extravaganza’.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This £96bn wish list is economic madness that treats hard-pressed taxpayers like an unlimited piggy bank.

‘Wasting tens of billions in unfunded state expansion is a reckless raid on already bleeding working families.’

Mr Burnham’s spokesman insisted: ‘This is nonsense.

‘This week Andy Burnham cut taxes twice and his instinct is to cut taxes wherever possible.

‘Everything he announced was fully funded.’

In an interview, Mr Healey confirmed he would try to find billions more to spend on the Armed Forces.

The chancellor insisted it was ‘every government’s first duty’ to keep the country safe and vowed to ‘deliver on our defense commitments to our international allies’.