FACT CHECK
Labour government would save families nearly £7,000 a year, claims John McDonnell – but what’s the reality?
JOHN McDonnell has today claimed a Labour government would save families nearly £7,000 a year.
This includes £559 on energy bills, £113 on water, £364 on broadband, £2,194 on a pair of rail season tickets, £2,941 per child on average for childcare, £108 on yearly prescription charges and £437 on free school meals.
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He added today: "You deserve better, and you will be better off under Labour. Where the Tories have failed, a Labour government will be on your side."
But the pledges have already been brutally skewered by experts.
Robert Colvile, the director of the think-tank Centre for Policy Studies, tweeted: "Even by the standards of modern politics, it is impossible to stress how bloody shoddy these numbers are and how quickly they fall apart."
A former Jeremy Corbyn adviser and also blasted it.
Tom Hamilton wrote: “Anyone who tells you Labour will put £6,717 in your pocket is lying to you, it’s as simple as that”.
The far-left manifesto puts re-nationalisation at the heart of the financial plan, which makes judging it difficult.
Another issue experts flagged with the figures is what Labour have deemed to be the "average household".
The party have concocted an outlandish British home as having two working parents rich enough to commute into a city, pay for NHS prescriptions and have zero help with childcare.
But, despite that, they bizarrely still earn minimum wage, rent their home and receive free school meals.
After the flurry of expensive promises, the Sun Online looked at the figures to see if they added up.
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RAIL
The promising saving is £2,194 on a pair of rail season tickets.
As well as using rail savings when just 11 per cent of Brits commute by train, they've also thrown in the 2020 figure for season tickets.
Beyond work, 62 per cent of journeys in Britain are made by car, compared to only 3 per cent by rail.
The bill increases between 2010 and 2019 are also based on the actual figure, with inflation not included other than in wages.
BROADBAND
Labour say they will save families £364 by nationalising broadband.
This is based on their "by 2030" promise and treats the change like an immediate saving.
PRESCRIPTION CHARGES
Labour say every families will save £108 on yearly prescription charges.
The figure only applies if you are already paying prescription charges, and 84% of NHS prescriptions are already available for free.
Labour’s analysis also assumes that every family pays £9 a month for prescriptions.
CHILDCARE
Labour say they would save £2,941 per child on average, but figures from the Department for Education suggested parents were paying less than Labour claimed.
The sums also assume everyone in the country has a 2-year-old child, when actually there are just 681,000 kids that age.
It also appears to be costing it's own expansion of free childcare, not the Government's already existing £6bn spend.
SCHOOL MEALS
Labour say they will save £437 a year on school meals.
The figure holds up, but the poorest children already get free school meals.
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NATIONALISATION
The party claim every single family will save £559 on energy bills, £113 on water, £364 on broadband.
Some of the Labour figures come from a Greenwich University report which recommended they pay about £30bn less than the combined market value of the water companies, energy firms and Royal Mail.
The energy claims are also questionable, with Labour’s dossier assuming that all 27 million homes would be insulated from year one.
It is impossible to know the exact price of taking utilities into public ownership, and even getting them back could bring up a series of difficulties.
Labour have also questioned the figures in their own manifesto, admitting it relies on “hope” that it’s free, and isn’t sure it will be.
The Institute for the Fiscal Studies say the change of ownership would bring around £200bn of assets and £150bn of debt.
They also warned Labour would have to provide compensation to the current owners likely to be at least “many tens of billions of pounds”.
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