Sir Keir Starmer insisted Rachel Reeves did not mislead the public over the state of the public finances ahead of the Budget. The Prime Minister was asked after his speech this morning whether the Chancellor failed to offer “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.

Sir Keir said: “There was no misleading, and I simply don’t accept, and I was receiving the numbers, that being told that the Office for Budget Responsibility productivity review means you’ve got £16 billion less than you would otherwise have had shows that you’ve got an easy starting point.

“Yes, of course, all the other figures have to be taken into account. But we started the process with significantly less than we would otherwise have had.

He said there was “no pretending” that it was a “good starting point”.

He added: “There was a point at which we did think we would have to breach the manifesto in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve. Later on, it became possible to do it without the manifesto breach.

“Given the choice between the two, I didn’t want to breach the manifesto, and that’s why we came to the decisions that we did.”

It comes as the Chancellor is under pressure over claims she misled voters over the state of the public finances ahead of her tax-hiking Budget.

Ms Reeves fuelled speculation in a Downing Street speech weeks earlier laying the groundwork for tax rises.

While the Office for Budget Responsibility did deliver a productivity downgrade that wiped £16 billion off expected tax receipts, much of that was cancelled out by inflation and higher wage growth, leaving a £4.2 billion surplus against her borrowing rules.

But MS Reeves said the forecast did not take into account the welfare reform U-turn or the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.