Labour has said it “does not recognise” estimates that pledges in its manifesto would cost more than £90bn to deliver, as questions mounted over the economic viability of its ambitious spending plans, including abolishing tuition fees, £6bn extra for the NHS and building 100,000 homes every year.

The Daily Mail and the Telegraph claimed their analysis of Labour’s spending plans revealed it would cost £93bn, or £4,000 per family, though the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has put the overall figure at £55bn.



A spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn said the £93bn estimate was incorrect. “We do not recognise these figures or the way these policies have been presented,” he said. “Labour has not published the manifesto yet, but when we do we will set out our plans in full.”

The party’s Treasury team has said the manifesto will be fully costed and meet its “fiscal credibility rule” – for any future Labour government to balance day-to-day spending with the sum it raises in taxes, with borrowing permitted only for investment.

The party has suggested it will borrow about £35bn a year to invest in infrastructure, including one of its flagship proposals – a new national investment bank.

Estimates for Labour’s spending commitments vary, but include about £10bn for the abolition of tuition fees and the restoration of the maintenance grant, and £15bn a year for what the party says will be the biggest council housebuilding programme for 30 years, with a pledge to build “at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale”.

According to the Institute for Economic Affairs, the Thatcherite thinktank, the party’s initiatives to raise revenue – such as raising corporation tax, and income tax for those earning more than £80,000, coupled with its borrowing plans – would raise £63.5bn, leaving a shortfall of about £30bn.

Paul Johnson, IFS director, said the plans in the leaked manifesto draft amounted to the biggest state intervention in the economy for decades, apart from those forced by economic catastrophe such as the bailout of banks.

“We clearly know from today’s leaked Labour manifesto that they are looking at spending a very, very large amount more than the Conservatives will,” he said.

“We’re looking about an additional £25bn a year on infrastructure spending; an additional £10bn a year or so to cover the impact of getting rid of university tuition fees; we’ve already heard that they’re looking at spending another £7bn or £8bn on other aspects of education.”

Johnson said it was clear there would be “a very big increase in corporation tax – increasing it by about 40%, about one percentage point of national income”, as well as income from the additional tax on those earning more than £80,000 a year, though there are no details on how much the increase would be and how much it is expected to raise for the Treasury’s coffers.

The party will not release its workings until the official launch of the manifesto next week, but the shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, said the tax burden on families would be nothing like the £4,000 estimated by the newspapers.

He repeated the party’s pledge that no one earning less than £80,000 a year would see their tax burden increase. “All our policies are fully costed, and the costings will be revealed on Tuesday next week when we reveal the manifesto and where that money is coming from,” Gardiner told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“Nobody who is [paid] under £80,000 a year will be seeing an increase in their tax rate. Some 95% of people in this country are going to have less costs in their life not greater. The bulk of funds that are going to be necessary to implement these policies are coming not from taxation on individuals, but actually from restoring the cuts this government has made to corporation tax.”

Gardiner promised that Labour would shift the burden of tax to businesses and the highest 5% of earners. McDonnell has previously said it will be the 1% – those earning over £150,000 a year and paying top rate tax – who will see the highest increase.

“When we were in office the tax burden on the British people was 33.9% of GDP, under this government it is currently 34.4%,” he said. “And they are projecting that by 2020 it will be 37.2%. What we are saying is that we will shift the burden of taxation from ordinary people. It will be levied on the rest of society through corporation tax, through capital gains tax, and inheritance tax.”

A Conservative spokesman said the commitments in the dossier “will rack up tens of billions of extra borrowing for our families, jobs will be lost and our economic security damaged for a generation if Jeremy Corbyn and the coalition of chaos are ever let anywhere near the keys to Downing Street”.

Theresa May is expected to attack the manifesto leak and Corbyn’s policy proposals at a speech in the north-east on Friday. “We have learned from the shambolic leak of his manifesto that at the heart of his plan is a desire to go back to the disastrous socialist policies of the 1970s,” the prime minister will say.