No apology for budget

RISHI Sunak has declined to apologise for the mistakes of Liz Truss’s Government that are expected to add billions of pounds of tax hikes and spending cuts to his budget.

The Prime Minister instead insisted yesterday he will make “difficult decisions that are required to fix” the missteps of his Conservative predecessor in No.10.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is looking to find up to £60billion from a combination of hikes and spending cuts in his autumn statement tomorrow.

Economists at the Resolution Foundation have calculated that Ms Truss’s disastrous so-called mini-budget exacerbated the problem to the tune of £30bn, while causing chaos in the mortgage market.

During a round of broadcast interviews in Bali, where Mr Sunak is attending the G20 summit, he repeatedly refused to apologise for the Tories’ handling of the economy.

Instead, when pressed by Sky News, Mr Sunak said he has acknowledged “mistakes were made”, adding: “What I want to do now is fix them”.

“I think I demonstrated over the summer that I’m prepared to be honest with the country about the challenges we face and to make the difficult decisions that are required to fix them,” he said.

He did not repeat the comments of his Chancellor that “we’re all going to be paying a bit more tax” but said the approach on Thursday will be “fair and compassionate”.

Mr Sunak told BBC News: “The number one challenge we face is inflation. We’re not alone in that, actually, for example, Germany and Italy have inflation that is even higher than ours at the moment.

“And it’s important that we get a grip of that, it’s important that we limit the increase in mortgage rates that people are experiencing. And the best way to do that is to get a grip of our borrowing levels and have our debt on a sustainable basis falling.”

Mr Sunak’s premiership is so far being dogged by strikes, with nurses and civil servants preparing to join rail workers in taking action over issues including pay.

With the Prime Minister having so far kept in place the abolition of the cap on bankers’ bonuses, he urged bosses to keep down their pay in order not to exacerbate inflation.