Former Scots Sec backs Truss for No 10

Former Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth is backing

Liz Truss to be prime minister, claiming that she is more in touch with businesses and families’ concerns than Conservative leadership rival Rishi Sunak.

Lord Forsyth, who was chairman of the Lords economic affairs committee from 201722, also claimed that former chancellor Sunak is to blame for the country’s high inflation.

He said: “I think Rishi is too much influenced by what is described as Treasury orthodoxy, and not really as in touch as Liz is with the problems which people trying to run businesses and people trying to feed their families and keep their homes face.

“We simply have to find the resource to do that, and there are two ways. You can tax people and hand out money, or you can let them keep their money themselves and not have to think up ways of distributing cash.

“Liz’s approach is to tackle regulation and bureaucracy and things that are making it very difficult for businesses to operate, and at the same time relieving the burden, and not having as Rishi introduced, a tax on jobs and employment.”

Sunak has vowed to slash the basic rate of income tax by 20% by 2029, which he said would be the biggest income tax cut since the time of Margaret Thatcher.

But Forsyth, who served as a minister under Thatcher, said: “He is promising to cut taxes in seven years’ time but the way things are going, with the crisis in Ukraine and everything else, thinking seven weeks ahead is difficult enough.

“The Bank of England told us in May last year that inflation will be transient and that it would be 3% and now it is telling us it will be 13%.

“So none of us can honestly think that far ahead.”