Brexit, net zero and trans rights... her views under spotlight
PENNY Mordaunt’s policies and positions on controversial issues have come under the spotlight after she became a surprise front-runner in the Tory leadership race. Here we examine her record.
TAX AND ECONOMY
Miss Mordaunt laid out her ‘lowtax, small state’ vision when she launched her campaign on Wednesday. She promised a new fiscal rule to ensure debt as a percentage of GDP falls over time.
Her pledges include cutting VAT at fuel pumps by 50 per cent until at least April. She also vowed to raise basic and middle earners’ tax thresholds in line with inflation. Miss Mordaunt wants to see the tax system simplified to reduce the bureaucratic burden on taxpayers.
One proposal is to earmark for MPs ‘social capital pots’ – cash for them to decide how best to spend in their constituencies.
It is one way of devolving power from the Treasury and may be a popular idea among some backbenchers. But critics say they could lead to a change in an MP’s role.
BREXIT
She voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum. But she has been criticised over her decision subsequently to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal in 2019.
Arch Brexiteer Steve Baker all but accused her of selling-out in a furious swipe on LBC suggesting she was instead more concerned about her place in Cabinet.
GOING GREEN
Miss Mordaunt is a supporter of transitioning to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. She has announced a wide-ranging package of economic reforms that she argued could create up to 3million ‘green jobs’ by 2030.
TRANS RIGHTS
Miss Mordaunt has flip-flopped as she tries to fend off accusations that she is the ‘woke’ candidate.
Her opponents point out the former Equalities Minister has been a strong supporter of trans rights. But she told LBC last week that she never personally supported changes to gender recognition laws.
Arguments have also raged over
what exactly her role was in key legislation which initially referred to ‘pregnant people’ rather than ‘pregnant women’.
DEFENCE
Miss Mordaunt, who has served as a naval reservist, promised to honour the UK’s Nato commitment of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030.
The minister said she would hold firm to the UK’s position on the war in Ukraine, saying Russia ‘must lose the war’.
She vowed to create a National Strategy Council to look at the challenges and opportunities facing the UK, as well as a ‘civil defence force’ to help in major events such as flooding.
PRESS ISSUES
Miss Mordaunt spoke positively about the Leveson Inquiry’s plans for a state-backed Press regulator.
In 2012, she was a signatory to a letter to The Guardian that said: ‘There are fundamental weaknesses in the current model of self-regulation [for the Press] which cannot be ignored.
‘We are concerned that the current proposal put forward by the newspaper industry would lack independence and risks being an unstable model destined to fail, like previous initiatives over the past 60 years.’
BRITISH CULTURE
She complained that classic sitcoms by David Croft and Jimmy Perry such as Dad’s Army and Hide-Hi! were ‘churned-out’ and have a ‘nostalgic focus’.
In a book published last year, Greater: Britain After The Storm, she said the writers’ comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, set among the British Army in India and Burma during the Second World War, features ‘casual racism, homophobia, colonialism, transphobia, bullying, misogyny and sexual harassment’.
HEALTH
She has previously intervened on behalf of homeopathy, an alternative medicine involving watered-down substances which has been widely-debunked by health professionals.
In June 2010, in her first year in Parliament, Miss Mordaunt was one of 16 supporters of a motion in the House of Commons, criticising the British Medical Association for voting to withdraw NHS support for homeopathy.