LABOUR would seek to return Britain to being "a fair society again", John McDonnell has claimed with policies that would see a resumption to collective bargaining for industry, fairer taxes for ordinary workers, scrapping the cap on public sector pay and ending zero-hours contracts.

The Shadow Chancellor insisted there would be no tax increases for low and middle income earners in his party's propsectus for government but declined to say how it would define what a middle income earner was. In recent days, Mr McDonnell suggested that someone earning £70,000 a year could be regarded as "rich".

He insisted Labour was committed to a "fair taxation system" and suggested "giveaways" to corporations and the rich would be reversed if Jeremy Corbyn became PM in order to pay for spending pledges on the NHS and schools.

Making clear Labour would not hike VAT, he told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Look, there's going to be a barrage of attacks[over spending and tax increases] but the issue around fair taxation is that we will protect middle and low earners."

Asked what a middle income earner was, Mr McDonnell said: "We’ll define that in our manifesto; you’ll see it very very clearly," stressing that all of Labour's spending commitments would be fully costed.

Asked about collective bargaining, the London MP noted how during the last two decades or so it had declined from 80 per cent of the workforce being covered by the practice to around 20 per cent today.

"That’s eroded wages overall," declared the Shadow Chancellor. "We can’t live in a society...it goes completely contrary to British values where we saw this morning, the reports of British nurses having a pay cut; 12 per cent over the last well seven or eight years.

"RCN are now saying our nurses are having to go to food banks because they can’t feed themselves on the wages that they get; that runs contrary to everything we believe in as a society. So, it’s looking at those issues to make sure people have secure employment but also when they go to work they have a level of income that enables them to actually put food on their plates," he explained.

Mr McDonnell added: "I want to try and get back to basic pay rates overall because in that way you can get to a situation where people are properly paid, they can know what their payments will be because in many instances now what we’re finding is wages are so low, not only that people are having to go to food banks - last year 1.25 million parcels were handed out - but in addition to that, people are having to borrow. Household debt has risen dramatically because people are having to go to payday lenders and others. We just need to get back to a fair society again."

But David Gauke, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, accused the Labour frontbencher of wanting to "clobber Britain with nonsensical tax rises; and families would pay the price".

He went on: "Jeremy Corbyn can’t cover up the fact that he and his closest allies have spent a lifetime calling for higher taxes on ordinary working people. Britain simply cannot take the risk of Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street, in charge of our Brexit negotiations and unleashing economic chaos on the country."