The criticisms capped a difficult first day of the Labour Party conference in Brighton, as several of the party’s other positions came under scrutiny:



• Rachel Reeves, a Treasury spokesman, claimed that a plan to extend the opening hours of every school in England would not cost any extra money.



• Ed Balls set out plans for the Treasury’s Office for Budget Responsibility to provide costings for all Labour’s manifesto pledges – even though the OBR’s current legal charter forbids it from doing so.



• Mr Miliband refused to answer repeated questions about his party’s plans on tax, the minimum wage and a European referendum, insisting that clear policies will have to wait until the general election in 2015.



Labour sources downplayed Tory criticism of the apprenticeships scheme, insisting that the “vast majority” of apprenticeships already went to British workers and would continue to so do.