Labour Will Back Osborne's Charter - McDonnell

Labour's new shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said the party will support Chancellor George Osborne's new fiscal charter designed to guarantee "budget responsibility".

But Mr McDonnell insisted Labour would adopt a different approach to balancing the budget than the Conservatives and protect low and middle-earners.

He also pledged to oppose tax cuts proposed by the Conservatives while looking at measures to tackle tax evasion and avoidance.

The anti-austerity stance which helped propel Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the party has led to critics - including the Tories - to claim Labour cannot be trusted with running the economy.

Voter concerns over the party's economic record have also been cited as a reason for their General Election defeat in May.

Ahead of this weekend's Labour Party conference in Brighton, Mr McDonnell told The Guardian: "We accept we are going to have to live within our means and we always will do - full stop.

"We are not deficit deniers."

Mr Osborne's proposal commits the Government to keep debt falling as a share of GDP each year and achieve a budget surplus by 2019-20.

Future (Other OTC: FRNWF - news) governments will be required to ensure there is a surplus in "normal times", which includes when there is not a recession.

Mr McDonnell told the newspaper: "We will tackle the deficit but the dividing line between us and the Tories is how we tackle it.

"Our basic line is we are not allowing either middle or low-earners or those on benefit to have to pay for the crisis. It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) is as simple as that."