As you can see, the shadow chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has joined us and we're going to get his reaction to everything the chancellor Rachel Reeves said yesterday. But first and foremost, his reaction to what Rachel Reeves said about him. An hour or so ago, Jeremy Hunt.

Covered up from the House of Commons and from the country the true state of the public finances. He did that knowingly and deliberately so.

He's a liar. If he covered something up knowingly, he's a liardhead.

He lied and they lied during the election campaign about the state of the public finances.

What's your reaction?

I think it's very disappointing that the new government is choosing to do politics this way. I think it actually discredits politics when people call each other liars. And I thought more highly of Rachel Reeves. I actually praised her on election night as being a committed civil servant. I think she can do better than that. The reality is that we.

Are you angry? Are you insulted by this? I mean, she called you a liar.

Of course, but I'm disappointed more than anything else. I mean, the reality is that we had good plans to deal with the pressures in public finances based on productivity in the public sector, welfare reform and the Rwanda scheme to deter illegal migrants. Now, labor has chosen not to go ahead with those plans. They're perfectly legitimately entitled to do that as the new government. But yesterday, Rachel Reeves approved 9 billion pounds of pay rises for public sector workers without asking for any productivity improvements in return, which is what we would have done, indeed, what we did last year, that makes them much more affordable. She chose not to do that. She's canceled the Rwanda scheme, which means the asylum bill is going to soar. And she's ditched welfare reform from the king's speech, which means the welfare bill will continue to go up. Now, those are choices that she has made. If there's any black hole here, it is because of choices that the new government has made, because we had good plans in place. And that's why I think people will be very disappointed that she's trying to pull this stunt. In claiming there's a fictitious black hole.

The spending increase, I think is a choice, and a lot of people have said that overnight. We put that to Rachel Reeves earlier, sort of alluded to the idea that the black hole perhaps was. Was at least smaller than the overall number that was mentioned. But there is about 10 billion pounds of spending which you were funding through reserves, and the reserves were being. Being blown out from what was available. Now, there's nothing wrong with funding extra spending through reserves, but if you know, just a couple of months into a fiscal year that the reserves are going to be used that very same year, multiple times over. Could you, and should you not have notified parliament?

Well, let's look at our manifesto for everyone to see. So it couldn't have been clearer. But this is the crucial point here, because what yesterday was really an attempt to do, having made these decisions that create a big hole in our spending because of canceling Rwanda and big public sector pay awards and so on, Rachel Reeves is going to have to put up taxes. And what she wants to do is to blame that on the conservatives. That was the central divide in the election campaign. We warned people that labor would put up taxes because we knew they weren't going to do things like welfare reform. Now, what I would say is, if we are going to have honest, honorable politics, it's a legitimate choice for a Labor government to increase spending and increased tax. That's what all labor governments do. Well, they should have told us. They hadn't told us about the tax rises. That's something that we will hear about in the autumn.But if, you know, they knew they were going to cancel Rwanda, they knew they didn't want to do welfare reform, they knew they wouldn't demand exacting productivity improvements from the unions. Having known that in advance, the consequence is tax rises. And they should have told us that before we all voted on July 1.There are productivity gains that they are pursuing and efficiencies. They're perhaps different from your own ones in terms of the political choice of prioritizing public sector pay increases compared to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Is that a sensible political choice?Well, it's not a choice we would have had to make if the Conservatives have been in power, because our plans allowed us to carry on.You wouldn't have been able to do the 9 billion cost per week as well.But we. What we did last year was we wouldn't do that. Let me answer your question, Wilf. We accepted the public the pay review body recommendations, but in return we asked for productivity improvements that bought down the cost of implementing them. Rachel Reeves didn't do that and that's why she's going to end up having.To do tax rises, but means testing the winter fuel allowance. Is there some sense in that?Well, I think that many pensioners will be very disappointed. Age UK is very disappointed. We lifted 200,000 pensioners out of poverty during the period that we were in office. And there are many pensioners who are not poor enough to get the pension credit but are not wealthy either, who will be very concerned at this move.Clearly, the public finances are tight and everybody would love endless tax cuts and more spending if it was possible. From what you're saying, it seems like you're saying you did as much as you felt you could when you were in office. Did Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, push you to do more tax cuts than you were able to deliver before an election?We agreed that if you look around the world. Excuse me, if you look around the world, the economies that are growing the fastest, like the United States, like the asian tiger economies, are ones with lower levels of tax. And so if we're going to grow fast, we need to. We had to put taxes up because of the pandemic, but we needed to do the hard work to bring them down. We'd started on that journey with national insurance cuts, with full expensing for capital investment by businesses. That was the journey we were taking the country on. Now, labor has a very different view, and I think that is the central contradiction in Rachel Reeves approach. She says that growth is her number one priority, but she's about to put up taxes that will strangle growth. And, you know, that is not a smart thing to do.We might get a rate cut this week. Do you wish the election day had been later?Well, I think the electorate are smart enough to see through what are temporary things that come and go when it comes to the statistics. What people knew when we went into the election was that, you know, we had brought down inflation to its target level of 2%. It was over 11% when I became chancellor, I took the tough and difficult decisions necessary to make that possible. And, you know, I understand there were other reasons why we didn't win the election, but I think that was something people recognized was a very important achievement.20 seconds left. On the show, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called you a liar. Your closing response to her?I think she can do better than descend to that kind of politics.

our manifesto for everyone to see. So it couldn't have been clearer. But this is the crucial point here, because what yesterday was really an attempt to do, having made these decisions that create a big hole in our spending because of canceling Rwanda and big public sector pay awards and so on, Rachel Reeves is going to have to put up taxes. And what she wants to do is to blame that on the conservatives. That was the central divide in the election campaign. We warned people that labor would put up taxes because we knew they weren't going to do things like welfare reform. Now, what I would say is, if we are going to have honest, honorable politics, it's a legitimate choice for a Labor government to increase spending and increased tax. That's what all labor governments do. Well, they should have told us. They hadn't told us about the tax rises. That's something that we will hear about in the autumn.

But if, you know, they knew they were going to cancel Rwanda, they knew they didn't want to do welfare reform, they knew they wouldn't demand exacting productivity improvements from the unions. Having known that in advance, the consequence is tax rises. And they should have told us that before we all voted on July 1.

There are productivity gains that they are pursuing and efficiencies. They're perhaps different from your own ones in terms of the political choice of prioritizing public sector pay increases compared to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Is that a sensible political choice?

Well, it's not a choice we would have had to make if the Conservatives have been in power, because our plans allowed us to carry on.

You wouldn't have been able to do the 9 billion cost per week as well.

But we. What we did last year was we wouldn't do that. Let me answer your question, Wilf. We accepted the public the pay review body recommendations, but in return we asked for productivity improvements that bought down the cost of implementing them. Rachel Reeves didn't do that and that's why she's going to end up having.

To do tax rises, but means testing the winter fuel allowance. Is there some sense in that?

Well, I think that many pensioners will be very disappointed. Age UK is very disappointed. We lifted 200,000 pensioners out of poverty during the period that we were in office. And there are many pensioners who are not poor enough to get the pension credit but are not wealthy either, who will be very concerned at this move.

Clearly, the public finances are tight and everybody would love endless tax cuts and more spending if it was possible. From what you're saying, it seems like you're saying you did as much as you felt you could when you were in office. Did Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister, push you to do more tax cuts than you were able to deliver before an election?

We agreed that if you look around the world. Excuse me, if you look around the world, the economies that are growing the fastest, like the United States, like the asian tiger economies, are ones with lower levels of tax. And so if we're going to grow fast, we need to. We had to put taxes up because of the pandemic, but we needed to do the hard work to bring them down. We'd started on that journey with national insurance cuts, with full expensing for capital investment by businesses. That was the journey we were taking the country on. Now, labor has a very different view, and I think that is the central contradiction in Rachel Reeves approach. She says that growth is her number one priority, but she's about to put up taxes that will strangle growth. And, you know, that is not a smart thing to do.

We might get a rate cut this week. Do you wish the election day had been later?

Well, I think the electorate are smart enough to see through what are temporary things that come and go when it comes to the statistics. What people knew when we went into the election was that, you know, we had brought down inflation to its target level of 2%. It was over 11% when I became chancellor, I took the tough and difficult decisions necessary to make that possible. And, you know, I understand there were other reasons why we didn't win the election, but I think that was something people recognized was a very important achievement.

20 seconds left. On the show, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called you a liar. Your closing response to her?

I think she can do better than descend to that kind of politics.