Labour has been forced to admit that the true cost of the Chagos Islands "surrender" deal is 10 times higher than what the Prime Minister claimed.

Announcing the giveaway earlier this year, Sir Keir Starmer said the deal would cost £3.4billion - but new figures from the Government Actuary's Department shows the cost is far higher.

The total sum, at first, was estimated at 10 times Starmer's figure - £34.7billion.

This was then lowered by the Government through inflation estimates, then lowered once again under a accounting method sometimes used for long-term projects.

Ministers had refused to release the figures when Tories attempted to file Freedom of Information requests to the Foreign Office, while the Prime Minister himself had said estimates between £9-18billion were "wide of the mark".

The deal, signed in May, saw Starmer hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while keeping the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia on a 99-year lease.

"It's bad enough that Starmer and Reeves' economic mismanagement has created a £50billion black hole in the public finances, prolonging the cost of living crisis," Kemi Badenoch blasted to The Telegraph last night.

"Now, our research has uncovered the Government's own figures showing Labour's Chagos surrender is costing the country another £35billion.

"Add that to their £50billion black hole, and it's clear - when Labour negotiates, Britain loses."

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When MPs return on September 1, her Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel is set to demand a correction from Sir Keir Starmer, and an apology for the "cover-up" of failing to release the data.

Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mel Stride, said he does not think Labour is "being straight with the British people".

The Devon MP said his party would be "pressing the Government very hard" on the issue when Parliament returns in the autumn.

He told GB News: "What has now materialised as we've got this information through the Freedom of Information request is not only has a discount been applied because of an assumption around inflation, but also a further discount applied because of the long term nature of this arrangement.

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Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said he does not think Labour is 'being straight with the British people'

"Now, Angela Rayner, when she came out and told everybody how much the Labour government would be spending on social housing going forward, did similar kind of calculations, but didn't use the same methodology at all.

"In that case, the Government, of course, wanted to inflate the numbers to make them look bigger.

"On this occasion, they've used a different methodology to try and make the number look substantially smaller. And we don't think that's being straight with the British people."

Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones has however said Labour does "not recognise" the initial estimated cost of the Chagos Islands deal.

Speaking to the People's Channel this morning, Davies-Jones said: "I want to be very clear with your viewers today that we do not recognise that figure at all.

"The Prime Minister has been has been forthright in saying that the true cost of this is that £3.4billion figure, it is less than 0.2 per cent of the defence budget, which is less than the cost of a of an aircraft carrier and all of that in order to keep national security safe.

"The United States are on board with this agreement to make sure that we can maintain that military base on Diego Garcia for national security.

"And we think that is that is what is needed in order to protect our British citizens."