General election live: Rishi Sunak launches Conservative manifesto with £17bn tax cut promise

Sunak would have put his plans in a Budget rather than the manifesto if he was confident the figures added up, Reeves says.

She says the Tories “know their numbers don’t add up”.

Shadow chancellor adds that the Tories’ “desperation” will put the economy at risk.

Reeves describes the manifesto as a “last-minute, desperate scramble” to win votes ahead of the general election.

She notes that Sunak included plans for further cuts to national insurance contribution after Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, suggested doing so would not “move the dial”.

There is “no plan” to pay for the tax cuts, she adds.

Sunak’s manifesto is evidence that the Tories have not “learned their lesson” from the Truss disaster, Reeves says.

She adds that the party’s plans are a “recipe” for five more years of “chaos”.

Reeves asks “what happened” to the Sunak who wanted to “steady the ship”.

Increased mortgage costs “not tax cuts” is what the public will get if the Tory plans are followed through, Reeves claims.

She again likens the party’s manifesto to the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget that sent the markets into freefall.

“The damage done in those 49 days will last for years”, Reeves adds, as she criticises Sunak’s call for the voters to look to the future rather than the past.

Lastly, Reeves says, the Tories will not be able to save £12bn from the welfare bill.

She says the welfare bill has spiralled under the government.

Shadow chancellor adds that savings can be found but that the Tories’ plans to slash £12bn are “pure fiction”.

The fourth error, Reeves claims, is the Tory promise to find savings from scrapping poorly performing university courses.

She says it is not true that the party can find more than £1bn from the policy.

It won’t work because they have no plans to cap student numbers, she adds.

The second error, Reeves says, is that the Tory claim that clamping down on tax avoidance would raise £6bn is not true.

The third, she adds, is the claim that the party can find over £1bn in efficiency savings.

She says “the truth is” that they have provided “absolutely no detail”.

Union chief Matt Wrack has claimed that the Tory manifesto is a “declaration of war” on workers’ rights.

The general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), has attacked Rishi Sunak for not pledging to repeal anti-strike laws.

The president of the Trades Union Congress said: “The Tory manifesto is a further declaration of war on trade unions and workers’ rights.

“The minimum service legislation seeks to effectively ban firefighters and other workers from going on strike to defend their jobs, wages and employment conditions.

“It’s outrageous that the Tories are planning to continue to use this highly authoritarian and dictatorial law to attack trade unions if they are re-elected.”

Shadow chancellor says she has identified five serious errors in the Conservative manifesto.

The first, she says, is that the plan for national service will cost double what the party has claimed.

The plan would use up all of the money the party could reasonably raise from clamping down on tax avoidance, she adds.

Reeves says her previous experience working as an economist at the Bank of England means she has a firm grasp of “sound money” as she criticises plans for Tory tax cuts.

She claims that if the Tories’ plans are followed through they will pose a “threat to our economy and household incomes.”