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'Britain has a debt problem, it has a growth problem and it has now a Healey problem,' the Shadow Chancellor warned

Andrew Griffith has taken a swipe at John Healey in his first speech as Shadow Chancellor today.

Ahead of the major Tory speech, Labour warned the UK should brace for a "really challenging" Autumn Budget.

The Shadow Chancellor began: "I'm afraid we meet in difficult times. Britain today faces many problems. It has a debt problem. It has a growth problem, and it has now a Healey problem.

"Labour inherited the first two, but immediately made them worse. They chose to add £260billion of debt over the course of this parliament.

"They chose to impose the highest tax burden since records began.

"And in just 40 days' time, on October 28, we fear it is about to get worse because, rather than change, we have another chancellor who's out of his depth."

He added: "Markets smell weakness and as a result, today government borrowing costs to be paid by all of us are at a 28-year high, higher than Italy, higher than Greece.

"And our interest bill is now more than twice what we spend on defence.

"Kemi and I have set out our plan for how we would fund the difficult decisions to fund defence, but John Healey prefers to continue out-of-control welfare spending."

Calling on Mr Healey to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget, Mr Griffith said: "Businesses are already suffering enough. The Chancellor must end the uncertainty today and rule out any new taxes.

"He must rule out increasing taxes on small businesses and the self-employed. And he must rule out an exit tax, the mere rumours of which are already causing Britain's wealth creators to flee the country."

The criticism comes after Andy Burnham began to blame the fallout from world conflicts, including the Middle East and Ukraine.

He insisted the international turmoil could make for a "challenging" Budget and has repeatedly refused to rule out tax rises.

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Last week, Mr Burnham was repeatedly grilled by the Tory leader about a £14billion blackhole in public finances during a rowdy rendiiton of Prime Minister's Questions.

Mrs Badenoch, who warned the Prime Minister his "honeymoon is over", said: "The markets are clearly worried that we now have a spendthrift Prime Minister who wants to say yes to everyone but cannot tell us where the money is coming from.

"He needs to pay for all his new promises and he has a choice: higher taxes, more borrowing or spending cuts.

"Yesterday, he said change begins with honesty. So will he be honest and tell us is he preparing to raise taxes again, yes or no?"

Mr Burnham replied: "I’m not going to do what any Prime Minister has done and is write the Budget here.

"But can I also say to her and indeed to the whole of her new Shadow Cabinet, the majority of whom were part of a Government that lasted for 49 days, a short-lived Government that crashed confidence in the economy, hammered people’s mortgages.

"She took a decision at the weekend, she removed a Shadow Chancellor who said that the Truss mini-budget was a mistake and she replaced that Shadow Chancellor with one that helped write the Truss mini-budget.

"Dare I remind the House that the Leader of the Opposition is on record as saying that Liz Truss is 100 per cent right?