Truss: I’ll do everything I can to help struggling families
LIZ Truss vowed last night to give families more help to get through the winter by holding an emergency budget in weeks if she becomes prime minister.
The Tory leadership favourite told the Daily Mail she was determined to ‘do all we can’ to support households in the cost of living crunch.
A package of measures will include tax cuts and a discount on energy bills. And it is understood the Foreign Secretary is examining further options.
Miss Truss admitted the country is facing a ‘tough winter’ amid dire warnings of a looming recession.
‘People need help immediately with the growing cost of living crisis,’ she said. ‘As prime minister, I’ll take decisive and swift action to give struggling families the help they need. They can trust me to deliver when times are tough.’
Inflation is forecast to hit a 42-year high of 13.3 per cent, while the economy is expected to shrink for more than a year. On Thursday the Bank of England this week raised interest rates by the steepest amount in almost three decades in an attempt to curb soaring prices.
Experts have warned a typical gas and electricity bill will rise to £3,358 a year from October, before reaching £3,615 in the new year.
Miss Truss said the country could not carry with ‘business as usual’.
She said: ‘My view is we need to do all we can to support families during this cost of living crisis by cutting their fuel bills and by reducing their taxes.
‘But we also need to grow the economy and unleash all the opportunities in the economy or the post-Brexit opportunities... but also keeping corporation tax low to deliver that economic growth to avoid a recession.
‘What I don’t support is carrying on with the same strategy we have at the moment with business as usual when we’re facing such a serious economic situation.’
Earlier yesterday, referring to her leadership rival Rishi Sunak’s planned policies, she told a leadership hustings in Eastbourne: ‘I’m not going to make predictions...
but what I know is that putting up taxes is likely to lead to lower economic growth and more chance of a recession.’
It was suggested Miss Truss would hold the budget on September 21, although her campaign team said no date had been set.
Measures would include reversing the national insurance hike introduced in April by Mr Sunak and scrapping a green levy that adds £153 to the average energy bill. Miss Truss has said investments in renewables will instead be funded in general taxation.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, a supporter of the Truss campaign, took aim at Mr Sunak’s record yesterday, saying that putting up taxes is ‘adding insult to injury’.
But Sunak backer Liam Fox said borrowing money for tax cuts now would be taking a ‘risk’ with the economy, and warned against ‘magical solutions’.