Labour slammed as ‘foolish’ and ‘expensive for taxpayers’ as party refuses to apologise for mega green pledge U-turn

LABOUR was today slammed as "foolish" and "expensive for taxpayers" as senior shadow ministers refused to apologise for the party's major green pledge U-turn.

Science Minister Andrew Griffith insisted it was "absolutely right" for Sir Keir Starmer to change his mind about splurging £28bn a year on eco-projects.

But he added that the fact the pledge was ever made shows "how foolish it would be and how expensive for taxpayers, were they to get intopower".

Yesterday, following weeks of wrangling, Sir Keir's spending pledge was scaled back to just just £5billion a year in his biggest U-turn yet.

The Labour boss officially abandoned the eye-watering figure following relentless Tory attacks - but admitted the remainder of Labour's clean energy proposals would now be partly funded by a tax rise.

Labour's manifesto will now pledge to spend an extra £23.7 billion over five years on green plans.

£12.9 billion will be borrowed with £10.8 billion coming from expanding the Windfall Tax on energy firms profits until the end of the decade and hiking it to 78 per cent.

This morning Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves refused to apologise for the U-turn - instead blaming the move on Tory economic mismanagement.

She told BBC Breakfast: "I'll make no apologies for ensuring that our plan is fully costed, fully funded and deliverable within the inheritance we're going to get.

"It is going to be a bleak inheritance after the damage the Conservatives have done to our economy."

Ms Reeves added: "In the almost three years that I've been shadow chancellor, I think people have heard loud and clear from me that fiscal responsibility, economic responsibility, are the most important things for me because it is absolutely essential that the public finances are managed well.

"And when economic circumstances change, your plans have to change as well."

Shadow Business Secretary Jonny Reynolds also refused to apologise, telling Times Radio: "I think the public themselves will be reviewing their fixed term mortgages, they'll be finding out the full impact of that Liz Truss mini budget that still lingers with us.

"They know things have changed if they run a business and they want people, yes, with ambition for change, which is what the Labour Party is offering, but they also want things that can be delivered.

"And this plan, we've got, the clarity we put into it today is absolutely spot on."

In a blast at Labour, Mr Griffith said the issue wasn't the U-turn but rather the opposition's lack of a plan.

He told Times Radio: "The issue is the incoherence or absence of a plan. 

"So it's absolutely right to be lauded when people change their mind.

"But you've got to have a credible plan before, and you've got to move to a credible plan in that change of mind."

He added: "I think they've got a lot of explaining to do. 

"Were they right at the beginning of the week when they said that their green plans, which they stand by, were going to cost 28 billion, or were they right yesterday when they said they weren't?

"Rachel Reeves ran off to the US, was impressed by the idea of spending lots of public money, taxpayers money, on plans that they hadn't costed, hadn't put together properly."