Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer attacks Labour’s 2019 manifesto during Prime Minister’s Questions

Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer spoke in the Commons on Wednesday, May 25, hitting out at propositions in Labour’s 2019 manifesto “that would have inflicted the highest tax burden on the people of this country in peacetime”.

Mrs Mortimer said: “Does the Prime Minister agree that when the leader of the Opposition spins his myth of a low tax Labour party, he clearly needs a memory jog?

"May I remind Labour Members that in 2019 they all stood on a manifesto that would have inflicted the highest tax burden on the people of this country in peacetime — and that is probably why there are so few of them over there on the Labour Benches?”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson then responded that Labour would campaign to increase taxes on business again, adding that “we can feel the lust for tax rising off those Opposition benches”.

Prime Minister’s Questions this week came just hours after Sue Gray’s report into the partygate scandal was published.

The inquiry has said the "senior leadership" in the Government must "bear responsibility" for the culture which led to coronavirus lockdown rules being broken.

The Metropolitan Police has issued 126 fines for rule breaches in No 10 and Whitehall, with the Prime Minister receiving a single fixed-penalty notice for his birthday party.

In a statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr Johnson renewed his apology and said he takes “full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch”.

Mrs Mortimer has been asked by the Mail to comment on the newly-published report.