A Labour frontbencher became tangled in an excruciating on-air numbers muddle this morning after she was accused of wildly inflating the amount of rough sleepers in her constituency.

Dawn Butler's claim that Brent had 3,000 rough sleepers in 2007 was leaped upon by disbelieving radio host Nick Ferrari, who pointed out that the total figure for England is just shy of 5,000.

The shadow equalities minister tried to wriggle out of her blunder by insisting that homelessness was not in her remit - prompting the exasperated LBC broadcaster to retort: 'So why are you talking about it?'

The Ministry of Housing's most recent figures puts the number of rough sleepers in the northwest London borough on 30.

The awkward exchange was reminiscent of Diane Abbot's car-crash interview in 2017, when Ferrari dismantled the shadow home secretary's costings for an extra 10,000 police officers.

Today's gaffe from Ms Butler came from a conversation about how Labour would tackle rough sleeping if Jeremy Corbyn wins power at next month's general election.

Dawn Butler's claim that Brent has 3,000 rough sleepers was leaped upon by disbelieving radio host Nick Ferrari, who pointed out that the total figure for England was just shy of 5,000

Ms Butler said: 'I can tell you that in 2007, I had around 3,000 or so rough sleepers in Brent.

'The Labour government invested an extra £5million to make sure we can eradicate rough sleeping.

'We approached the people who were sleeping rough and we helped them out of that situation.'

Sceptical of her assertion, Ferrari grilled her on the figure and said: '3,000 people sleeping rough in Brent borough? Do you know what the number is across the whole of England?'

Ms Butler said that she didn't know the nationwide figures, which sparked a withering response from the forensic radio host.

He said: 'So you're pledging to end rough sleeping but you don't know how many people you've got to help?'

After a long pause, Ms the Labour frontbencher replied: 'I don't know all the figures and all the numbers.'

Dawn Butler and Priti Patel during an interview at last night's debate in the 'Spin Room' ahead of general election in London

Ferrari interjected: 'Don't you think you should have been armed with those figures?'

In a last-ditch effort to shrug off her numbers muddle, Ms Butler claimed that homelessness was not part of her shadow brief and so she was not clued-up on the figures.

But grilling her further, Ferrari said: 'So why are you talking about it?' and even started to laugh.

He continued: 'What I find incredible is Dawn Butler is that you say 3,000 people sleep rough in Brent, well the last figures we have from 2017 is that there was 4751 people sleeping rough in the whole of England, of which 3,000 were in Brent! Are you sure you've got your figures right?'

Mr Ferrari's figures were taken from the Ministry of Housing's 2017 estimate.

The Ministry of Housing put the current figure for Brent at 30, and in 2010 the borough officially only had three rough sleepers.

Another report put the figure in Brent nearer 248, although these statistics could be skewed higher as rough sleepers may have been counted more than once in different boroughs.

Ms Butler then tried to make light of her gaffe by teasing Ferrari for getting overexcited when politicians throw around numbers.

The LBC host memorably savaged her Labour colleague Diane Abbot in a spectacular car-crash interview before the last general election in 2017.

The shadow home secretary had tried to claim that an additional 10,000 police officers would cost a mere £300,000 before becoming confused about her party's policy.