Ed Miliband, pictured arriving in Manchester ahead of the manifesto launch, will today pledge to cut the deficit every year if Labour wins the election . Ed Miliband will today pledge to cut the deficit every year if Labour wins the election. In a last-ditch attempt to steal the Tories’ mantle as the party of economic responsibility, he will warn supporters that Labour faces coming to power in a ‘time of scarcity’. Launching the party’s manifesto in Manchester, Mr Miliband will claim ‘not one policy’ in it would be funded through additional government borrowing. He will insist a Labour government would ‘cut the deficit every year’ and have national debt falling ‘as soon as possible’, though he will not set a date. Labour’s manifesto, published last night, contains a commitment on its first page to a ‘Budget Responsibility Lock’. The party says this would be ‘the basis for all our plans because it is by securing our national finances that we are able to secure the family finances of the working people of Britain’. Mr Miliband infamously forgot to make any mention of the deficit in his party conference speech last year, and polls show Labour lags far behind the Conservatives in trust on managing the public finances. But Mr Miliband will today insist that Labour is ‘not only the party of change but the party of responsibility too’. He will accuse the Tories of ‘throwing spending promises around with no idea of where the money is coming from’. The Labour leader will pledge ‘strong, fair fiscal rules’ meaning the national debt falls and a surplus on the ‘current budget’ – applying to day-to-day spending, not capital spending – is secured ‘as soon as possible in the next parliament’. He will say: ‘The very start of our manifesto is different to previous elections. ‘It does not do what most manifestos do...It does something different: its very first page sets out a vow to protect our nation’s finances; a clear commitment that every policy in this manifesto is paid for without a single penny of extra borrowing. ‘The plan we lay before you is no less ambitious because we live in a time of scarcity. It is more ambitious because it starts from a clear commitment to balance the books.’ Policies in Labour’s manifesto include a £2.5billion NHS fund paid for from a mansion tax, a levy on tobacco firms and closing a hedge fund tax avoidance loophole. The Labour leader, pictured in Leeds yesterday after launching the health manifesto, will insist a Labour government would ‘cut the deficit every year’ and have national debt falling ‘as soon as possible' Scrapping the ‘non-dom’ rule could set Labour on a collision course with the Governor of the Bank of England. Mark Carney features among a list of heavyweight figures in the City who could be forced to pay higher taxes if Labour wins power next month. The Canadian is one of 116,000 non-doms in Britain, meaning he has to pay tax on his UK earnings but not on income generated overseas. Mr Miliband wants to scrap the tax break, describing it as ‘indefensible’. A spokesman for the Bank defended the Governor’s status, saying: ‘This is not a choice. It’s a straight outcome of the tests that determine domicile status in the UK.’ He added that Mr Carney pays full UK tax on his £874,000 pay package. Others who would be affected by the crackdown include the foreign-born chiefs of RBS and Lloyds. It will also commit to 25 hours of childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds, paid for by increasing the banking levy, and smaller class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds, funded by scrapping the free schools programme. George Osborne said Labour’s plans would ‘bankrupt’ the country, and put the 300-year-old union with Scotland at risk if the party were propped up by the Scottish Nationalists. ‘If you have an Ed Miliband/Scottish Nationalist government, they will trash this economy,’ Mr Osborne told the BBC’s Andrew Marr. He said the Tories had a ‘balanced plan’ to finish the job of restoring order to the public finances that involved cutting £1 in every £100 of government spending for a further two years. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg accused Labour of ‘playing Russian roulette’ with the economy. Labour officials said ‘any government led by Ed Miliband’ would not compromise on the deficit. That will be seen as a bid to ease fears a Labour administration propped up by the SNP would wreak havoc with the public finances. ■ Labour would ensure Premiership football teams give millions to smaller clubs, Andy Burnham has said. The shadow health spokesman said it would enforce a Premier League commitment to invest 5 per cent of the proceeds from lucrative TV rights deals in grassroots sport. By Jason Groves, Deputy Political Editor for The Daily Mail . Labour yesterday admitted it cannot match David Cameron’s pledge to provide the NHS with an £8billion cash injection. The two main parties angrily traded blows over which would provide the most secure future for the Health Service. But independent experts urged Labour to back plans to plug a £30billion hole in the books. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) repeatedly refused to say whether Labour would provide the £8billion funding . These plans, drawn up by NHS boss Simon Stevens, commit the service to making £22billion of savings, but also require an extra £8billion a year by 2020. The independent Nuffield Trust said failure to make the financial commitment would have ‘serious consequences for the viability of the service’. Chief executive Nigel Edwards said Labour’s stance was ‘regrettable’, adding: ‘The NHS has a plan, which has been endorsed by all leading organisations in the sector. Labour are now the only party not to have committed to this £8billion and yet their proposals are likely to require more spending on the NHS.’ The Nuffield Trust also warned that Labour’s ‘health manifesto’, launched at the weekend, suggested a return to the top-down management style it used when it was last in office. Mr Edwards said: ‘The level of detail set out in this [Labour] document is somewhat concerning. The NHS is complex and often responds best to locally driven initiatives. ‘There is a risk that elements of this detailed approach could trigger further reorganisation.’ Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper repeatedly refused to say whether Labour would provide the £8billion funding. She said: ‘We will make sure the NHS has the money it needs and that’s what we’ve always done. ‘We’ll have practical measures that will raise £2.5billion – we can say where the money will come from, the Tories can’t.’ Miss Cooper also denied that Labour’s target to cut tax dodging by £7.5billion was simply ‘plucked from the air’. The party has promised to reduce evasion and avoidance by this amount by the end of 2017. But tax experts warned it would lead to a crackdown by HMRC on small firms – further souring relations between Labour and business. Challenged on the pledge yesterday, Miss Cooper said: ‘It is an ambitious and it’s a stretching target but we think it is right to do so because under the Conservatives the gap between the amount of tax that should be being paid and that is being paid has been widening.’
Miliband will warn that the party faces coming to power in ‘time of scarcity’
He will insist Labour would have national debt falling ‘as soon as possible'
Manifesto also pledges 'Budget Responsibility Lock' for no more borrowing.
Other policies include £2.5bn NHS fund paid for from a mansion tax and closing hedge fund tax avoidance loophole.