ALISTAIR DARLING will keep voters in the dark about the government’s true spending plans for the next parliament, provoking a new row with the Tories.

The chancellor has abandoned plans for a comprehensive spending review, which should have been held this year, until after the general election.

The move is designed to wrong-foot the Conservatives who have conceded that they will cut spending if they return to government.

The delay in producing detailed figures will anger the government’s critics, who have accused Gordon Brown of lying over Labour’s true intentions. This will be seen as a further example of government dishonesty.

Philip Hammond, the shadow Treasury chief secretary, said: “The argument comes down to a choice between the Conservatives who are telling the truth that it is going to be tough and a Labour party who cannot face up to the facts.”

The scrapping of the spending review means the public will have no precise idea of what Labour’s plans would mean for public services if the party were reelected. Instead, the government will confine any detail to areas where spending will be maintained or increased.

There are likely to be vague pledges over schools and health-care in the chancellor’s prebudget report, but silence on areas such as defence, transport and crime where the axe will have to fall.

Darling’s strategy, which he will argue is because of continued economic uncertainty, will deny the Tories information to draw up their own plans.

Spending reviews are normally held every two years; the last was in 2007. The cancellation of the review until after the election means the next government will need to rush through its spending plans.

The political row over spending has been raging for almost three weeks since Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, admitted that the Tories might have to cut spending by 10% to slash the £175 billion budget deficit. The Tories maintained he was quoting the government’s own figures.

Darling’s ploy signals that Labour intends to persist with its “investment versus cuts” battle with the Tories. Yesterday Liam Byrne, Treasury chief secretary, said Labour would “continue to grow day-to-day current spending”.

An admission on Friday by Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, that his department would face cuts was slapped down by Downing Street. Whitehall officials said he was referring to reductions in existing published plans.

The prime minister will this week attempt to open a new front in the debate over spending with the launch of his long awaited “national plan” for public services.

The document, officially entitled Building Britain’s Future, will offer a “guarantee” to all parents that if their children fall behind in maths or English they will be provided with private one-to-one tuition paid for by the state.

Brown hopes the promise will woo middle-class parents who send their children to state schools but pay for extra out-of-hours lessons to coach them for exams.

The prime minister will also offer a “guarantee” that cancer patients will see a specialist within two weeks of referral. Should local National Health Service hospitals be unable to see a patient, he or she will be sent private, with the cost paid by the primary care trust.

In the foreword to the policy document, Brown will say: “We stand for fair rules and believe a strong economy and strong society go hand in hand. This will involve a radical dispersal of power: in the future, patients and parents must drive the system, with real rights of redress where minimum standards are not adequately met.”

The long-awaited government relaunch was undermined yesterday with the announcement that Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health secretary, is planning to retire from the Commons at the age of 51.

His departure reflects the growing fear that Labour is headed for an electoral defeat so severe that it will take the party a generation to win back power.

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