CABINET minister Steve Reed accused the Tories today of having left a “catastrophic” inheritance and covered up the extent of the problem.

The Environment Secretary’s comment’s came as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to unveil a black hole in the public finances of around £20 billion.

He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “It’s not only that we didn’t know, the prime minister deliberately covered it up.”

Mr Reed pointed to the state of prisons and the Rwanda policy as examples of public finance issues the Labour government is learning the true extent of after taking office.

He would not confirm that Labour would consider pensions relief and capital gains and inheritance levies to plug the gap.

“I don’t see the benefit in speculating when we don’t even know the full scale of the problem yet,” he said, adding: “We’re not going to shy away from difficult decisions.”

The Chancellor will outline the spending inheritance left by the Tories when she presents the results of a Treasury audit to Parliament tomorrow.

A government spokesperson said the audit had shown “the previous government made significant funding commitments for this financial year without knowing where the money would come from."

They said: “The assessment will show that Britain is broke and broken — revealing the mess that populist politics has made of the economy and public services.”

Campaigners have called for a wealth tax, not austerity, to address the funding black hole.

A Momentum statement said: “There is nothing new about the £20bn shortfall in public finances — we knew this prior to the election 

“So unless wealth taxes are introduced, the Labour government risks rolling out a new era of austerity.

“Any form of austerity would have a catastrophic impact on society and must be stridently opposed by the labour movement. 

“Offering sweetheart deals to private finance to plug the gap would also be destructive to the public realm.

“If the Labour government really wants to deliver change, it must embrace wealth taxes and borrowing to generate large-scale public investment.”

The Chancellor is reportedly set to scrap or cut back infrastructure projects, which could include the £500 million Restoring Your Railway Fund and the A27 Arundel bypass.