‘I won’t run myself, but the door is ajar for a joint ticket with Boris’

Amber Rudd will not be the next Tory leader, but says whoever is must lower taxes and deliver Brexit

Amber Rudd has signalled that she could work with Boris Johnson if he becomes prime minister as she formally rules herself out of the Tory leadership race. The Work and Pensions Secretary left the door open to the creation of a “Bamber” joint leadership ticket in next month’s battle to succeed Theresa May.

Amid speculation she could become Mr Johnson’s chancellor, she said she “would like to lower taxes – we have to be the low-tax party because people have certain expectations...they need to be able to look after their own money”.

Ms Rudd also waded into the row over the UK’S new mobile 5G network, saying: “We should be able to do business with China and Huawei”.

Many have assumed there is a froideur between Ms Rudd and Mr Johnson after she said during the 2016 EU referendum that she would not like him to drive her home. However, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ms Rudd says that Mr Johnson was not offended and they get on well.

“Sure, I like him yeah. I like most of my colleagues. I am not somebody who actually fights. I get on perfectly well with him.”

She will not comment on the future but says: “I have worked with him before. He was foreign secretary, I was home secretary. We were able to work together.”

For the first time, Ms Rudd ruled herself out of standing to be leader – a month after saying the door was “slightly ajar” to her standing. “I am conscious the Conservative Party wants someone who they believe is very enthusiastic about Brexit.

“I still think it is a difficult job to do but we can do it, we can make a success of it. There are all sorts of

plans I would like to have when we do leave the European Union but I don’t think it is my time at the moment.”

Ms Rudd will not say who she backs until her newly launched

One Nation group of 70 Conservative MPS has held its own leadership hustings of the main candidates. She says: “We want to hold back before committing anybody because we want to interrogate them on the policies.”

She is also applying these

One Nation principles to her own department: from next week 250,000 disabled pensioners will no longer have to undergo checks to receive benefit payments.

Ms Rudd, 55, credits the move with her experience of looking after her father, Tony, who was blind for 36 years before his death in 2017.

She says: “I know how vulnerable disabled people are – but particularly elderly disabled people. He was amazingly strong and robust. We used to read The Telegraph to him often.

“My experience with him and his vulnerabilities has partly informed my decision. They have got enough to worry about – they have worked hard all their lives. It is quite hard getting old, it is not an easy time and I do not think they should be reassessed.”

I ask her if her father would have been proud of her. “You are making me a bit emotional. You are right – he would be so pleased,” she says.

Setting out her stall, Ms Rudd makes clear she is a fiscal conservative although she raises an eyebrow at Dominic Raab’s plan to cut 1p from basic income tax every year for five years, costing billions of pounds. She says: “It is very easy in the Conservative Party to call for reducing taxes on the one hand and for more support for schools, hospital, social justice or criminal justice. How are we going to balance this? I think we need to have a bit more of an honest conversation about it.

“In principle, I would like to lower taxes – we have to be the low-tax party.

“We have also got to be straight with people and explain to them how we are going to pay for things. If they want more money spent on the NHS, where are we going to get it from?

“I hope the next leader will take a practical approach. This party should be low-tax, pragmatic … but we don’t have a God-given right to govern and we have got to earn it.”

Ms Rudd wants to apply similar principles to Brexit. “We have to be practical over how we leave the European Union. I would like to see somebody who is straight with the British people who says, ‘I believe in the sovereignty argument … I am going to do it this way because I want to protect businesses and the economy and I want the money to invest in social justice and schools’.

“Even as somebody who campaigned for Remain I can see the positive things we can do. I would much rather us say, ‘These are the good things we can do once we have left the EU’, rather than, ‘We have to deliver it because you voted for it’. That always seems a bit sour.”

Ms Rudd surprisingly wades into the row over the proposed decision to give China’s Huawei a role in the development of the UK’S nascent 5G mobile phone network.

She says: “I have spoken to some of the big telecoms businesses who tell me that not having them participate would delay the roll out of 5G by years and cost billions. They are concerned. So we have to be careful about it.

“We are a great country with a fantastic record of security services and I am completely confident that properly advised and approached with caution we should be able to do business with China and Huawei.

“It is like what Reagan said – we have to trust but verify in terms of Russia, but also as we leave the EU we must not be cutting ourselves off.

“We need close friends who will be investing in our country and with whom we have a stronger relationship – and that could be China.”