Labour refers David Cameron to statistics watchdog over debt 'error'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/24/labour-david-cameron-debt

Version 0 of 1.

Labour has referred David Cameron to the statistics watchdog after he used a party political broadcast to claim the government was bringing down the debt.

The shadow chief secretary, Rachel Reeves, wrote to Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, after the prime minister claimed the government was "paying down Britain's debts".

A succession of ministers either knowingly or inadvertently failed to distinguish between government debt and the annual deficit.

Reeves claimed Cameron's error was not a slip of a tongue since it was asserted on a scripted broadcast.

She wrote to Dilnot: "This suggests that the Conservative party may be attempting to deliberately mislead the public about these statistics and the government's record."

In the broadcast, Cameron said "We are now halfway through the coalition's time in government and in two and a half years we have achieved a lot but I know people don't just want to hear from me, they want to know the facts … So though this government has had to make some difficult decisions, we are making progress. We are paying down Britain's debts."

Reeves claimed: "figures from the Office for National Statistics published this week show that the national debt is not being paid down, but is actually rising. Since this government came to office, public sector net debt has risen from £811.3bn (55.3% of GDP) in the second quarter of 2010, to £1,111.4bn at the end of December 2012 (70.7% of GDP)."

She added "The Office for Budget Responsibility has also forecast that public sector net debt will continue to rise and the government's target to get it falling by 2015-16 will not be met."

"This is not the first time government ministers have made similar claims about the national debt. However, last night's party political broadcast is the first occasion I am aware of when the prime minister has much such a claim in a scripted broadcast".

Dilnot has previously warned the government not to claim that health spending is rising in real terms – a claim that the Tories had to remove from their website.

Labour is confident that Dilnot will issue a ruling, and implicitly the prime minister's spokesman admitted there may have been an error. However as a civil servant he is not responsible for Conservative party broadcasts.