Labour MP calls on his party to say sorry for state of nation’s finances

Labour should make a “very clear apology without reservations” to the British people for leaving the national finances in disarray, a former Labour minister said yesterday.

MP Frank Field said the party would be unable to “move on” until it said sorry for building up a record deficit while in power.

But he said the apology should be shared by the Conservatives, who he claimed had egged the Blair and Brown governments on in every stage of their borrowing to fund public spending.

The Birkenhead MP, who was welfare minister under Tony Blair and was commissioned by David Cameron to carry out a poverty review for the coalition government, was responding to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicting a decade of mounting poverty.

Asked whether Labour should acknowledge its share of the blame for the situation, Mr Field told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “I think we have got to become much clearer about our responsibilities in this.

“When we have, we will be surprised at how easy it was to give an apology which is not qualified in any way.”

Mr Field was asked whether shadow chancellor Ed Balls should apologise.

He replied: “I think the whole of the opposition should, and I think we would accompany such an apology by saying that, of course, at every move of borrowing we were encouraged by the now Conservative government in trying to match that.

“So there’s guilt all round on that, but we won’t move on until we make that very clear apology without reservations to the British people.”

Conservative MP Matthew Hancock said: “Labour left this country spending £120 million every day on the interest on our debts – more than on schools or the police.

“They spent too much in the boom years, failing to fix the roof while the sun was shining. So it’s absolutely right that Labour and Ed Balls apologise for creating this appalling mess.”