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A Labour MP has apologised for claiming high street giant Costa Coffee does not pay its share of tax.

Dawn Butler made the accusation in a live radio interview backing Jeremy Corbyn 's pledge to take on the "establishment" "rigged system set up by wealth extractors" as he launched his general election campaign.

The former Shadow Cabinet minister told the BBC: "It is clear that those people, very high earners and tax corporations and businesses such as Costa Coffee etc who don't pay their full taxes in this country will have to pay their taxes in this country."

But she immediately rowed back when questioned if that was right by BBC presenter Eddie Mair.

(Image: PA)

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She said: "I’ve said Costa Coffee from memory but let me not say that definitively."

In fact, the 2015/16 accounts for Costa's parent firm Whitbread say it paid £116.1m of tax on £546.3m profits - an effective rate of 21.3%.

Ms Butler later tweeted: "I officially apologise to @CostaCoffee unlike one of their competitors they do pay all their taxes."

A Costa spokeswoman declined to comment but pointed to the company's publicly-available accounts.

Ms Butler's interview was dubbed a "car crash" by Tory critics on Twitter.

During the exchange with BBC Radio 4's PM she also claimed: "This election is Theresa May trying to rig democracy in our country."

Yet she said Labour was still right to back the election because "it gives us an opportunity to talk about our policies."

She added: "Labour supported it because it will give us an opportunity to talk about Labour’s policies around the NHS, around Brexit , around education."