Rachel Reeves has been asked why should “anyone believe the things you say” after Labour performed an embarrassing U-turn on green spending.
Keir Starmer and Reeves yesterday confirmed they were ditching Labour’s £28bn a year green investment pledge.
Instead the commitments has been slashed to just under £5bn a year during Labour’s first term of government.
The Labour leader and shadow chancellor have said the move is necessary because the Conservatives have tanked the economy.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast’s Charlie Stayt on Friday morning Reeves was pressed on the climbdown.
“Why should anyone believe the things you say about your plans when you are prepared if the circumstances require it to just to other things?” he said.
“It’s very hard to know what we can believe.”
Defending the long-expected U-turn, Reeves said it had to be done because the Conservatives had damaged the economy and would leave Labour with less money.
“In the almost three years I have 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,” she said.
“It is absolutely essential the public finances are managed well and when economic circumstances change the plans have to change as well.
“We all know that as families when the money coming in is not as much as it was a previously we have to adjust our own plans.
“It’s true for governments as well and I will always ensure that our plans are deliverable and affordable within he inheritance a Labour government will get.”
Reeves first announced the £28 billion a year plan to great fanfare at Labour’s annual conference in 2021.
The decision to ditch it has prompted a furious backlash against Starmer, who has previously been criticised for making repeated U-turns.
Conservative Treasury minister Andrew Griffith also this morning mocked the Labour leader for making a “massive, colossal, see-it-from-space U-turn” that proved “Labour has no plan”.