Jeremy Hunt warns of ‘very difficult’ decisions ahead on tax and spending as Liz Truss faces mutiny from senior Tories – live | Liz Truss
Very difficult decisions to be taken on tax and spending – Hunt
Some “very difficult” decisions are going to have to be taken on tax and spending, which is not going to increase as much as people hopes, Jeremy Hunt has said this morning
In an interview for Laura Kuenssberg’s show on BBC 1, the new chancellor reiterated a warning that all government departments would be asked “to find efficiencies.”
Hunt claimed that he had been happy on the backbenches and was surprised to get a call last week from Truss to replace Kwarteng.
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Q. Would he run again for Tory leader?
Jeremy Hunt says that having run in two leadership campaigns, and failed in both of them, “the desire to be leader has been clinically excised from me.. I want to be a good chancellor .. it’s going to be very very difficult but that is what I’m focusing on.”
[Not a ‘no’ then]
Politicians can’t control markets – and it’s dangerous when they try – but what they can do is speak with candour about the difficult decisions they are going to make, Jeremy Hunt has said.
“I want people to know we are going to make those difficult decisions in lots of areas, that are going to affect lots of walks of life in order to do everything that we can as a government to bring back that stability,” he told Laura Kuenssberg’s show on BBC 1.
Now, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. There is now two weeks in which we are going to go through a process of doing that but I think that what the country will see at the end of that process is a government that is willing to do the tough and difficult things to secure the long term prosperity that we all want for our families.
Q. How was Liz Truss when you spoke to her on the phone the other day?
Hunt says they have known each other for many years and he saw someone who was absolutely determined to do the right thing and recognises that you are not always going to be popular.
She knew that the way she had done things had not worked and she was willing to change.
Q. Who is in charge? You or her?
Hunt replies that the prime minister is in charge and that the biggest element of the mini-budget – the energy price cap – is still happening.
But central parts of the agenda are gone, it is put to Hunt, who replies that Truss has “changed the way we are going to get there” but not “the central destination”.
Q. What would Hunt say to Tory colleagues who view him as the last roll of a dice by Truss and that he will eventually replace her?
Hunts says that when he talks to constituents they say they want stability and the last thing they want is another protracted leadership campaign.
When it comes to a general election, he adds that the public will judge the government on what it has done over the preceding 18 months rather than the last 18 days.
Jeremy Hunt says Liz Truss has been prime minister for less than five weeks and the “central insight” that she campaigned on during her leadership campaign is that economic growth is the key thing we need.
Q. How can people trust what is being said?
He replies:
Because she has listened. She has changed. She has been willing to do that most difficult thing in politics, which is to change tack.
Q. Is it a return to austerity?
Hunt says he was in the cabinet in 2010 and he doesn’t believe there will be “anything like that”.
Laura Kuenssberg points out that there are rising interest rates now, however, and inflation.
Hunt says that if decisions are taken now then that is the best way to stop mortgage rates going up.
He says:
For those on the breadline I want them to know this is a compassionate Conservative government thinking about them at the top of our mind as we make these difficult decisions.
Q. Where are you going to cut public spending?
Hunt replies he wants to be very honest about that but it’s going to be two weeks on Monday in the House of Commons when he makes that announcement. Every department will be asked to find savings.
He is not taking anything off the table but wants to keep as many of the tax cuts that have already been announced
How confident is Hunt that markets are going to believe him and the turmoil can be calmed down on the basis of his assurances?
Hunt replied:
Well, I think for people trading in markets actions speak louder than words. The prime minister has changed her chancellor. We are going ot have a very big fiscal statement – a bit like a budget – in which we set out the tax and spending plans for several years ahead and that is going to be independently verified by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
We have been honest that it was a mistake not to do that in the mini budget before and that is now gong to be sorted out.
Very difficult decisions to be taken on tax and spending – Hunt
Some “very difficult” decisions are going to have to be taken on tax and spending, which is not going to increase as much as people hopes, Jeremy Hunt has said this morning
In an interview for Laura Kuenssberg’s show on BBC 1, the new chancellor reiterated a warning that all government departments would be asked “to find efficiencies.”
Hunt claimed that he had been happy on the backbenches and was surprised to get a call last week from Truss to replace Kwarteng.
Andrew Griffith, the financial secretary to the Treasury, has attempted to quell the rebellious mood among fellow Tory MPs, calling on colleagues to “get behind” Truss and Hunt.
Speaking on Sky News, Griffith continued with the Truss strategy of attempting to deflect questions about the government’s so-called “mini-budget” by deflecting difficult questions towards the action taken to cap energy bills.
US presidents don’t often put the boot into UK prime ministers (though there was also Donald Trump) but Joe Biden has also been among those criticising Liz Truss this weekend.
Biden has called Truss’s abandoned UK tax cut plan a “mistake” and said he is worried that other nations’ fiscal policies may hurt the US amid “worldwide inflation”.
He said it was “predictable” that the new British prime minister was forced on Friday to walk back plans to aggressively cut taxes without identifying cost savings, after Truss’s proposal caused turmoil in global financial markets.
It marked an unusual criticism by a US president of the domestic policy decisions of one of its closest allies.
Asked if Truss should go, Robert Halfon stopped short of calling for her removal, telling Sophy Ridge after a very long pause: “Well, at this time I am not calling fo her to go.”
But he added:
I worry about further political instability, even more economic instability, but things have to improve. I think she needs to set out some of the things I have been suggesting … If things don’t change I just think things may not be able to carry on in the way they have been.
In a piece for the Times this weekend, Halfon called on Truss to embrace the the blue-collar Conservatism that, he says, shaped the party’s success.
Remedies included reforming the £100bn-plus intervention on energy bills, he wrote, asking “Why should large companies or wealthy individuals get financial help?”
He also said that, far from scrapping affordable housing targets, the prime minister “should face down the nimbys and give financial incentives to housing associations”.
The influential Tory MP, Robert Halfon, said that the prime minister needs to hold a ‘fireside chat’ with the British people, who he said are frightened and dismayed,
Halfon, a leading voice among so-called ‘blue collar’ conservatives, said:
I worry that over the past few weeks that the government has looked like Libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as laboratory mice to carry out ultra free market experiments
This is not where the country is. There has been one horror story after another. It’s not just about tax cuts for the rich. It’s also about about benefit cuts
Michael Savage
Thousands of food bank volunteers will warn Liz Truss tomorrow that they are having to ration provisions, as their services have become “overstretched and exhausted” because of an influx of people needing their help.
In a sign of a continuing cost of living crisis that was building even before the economic crisis that followed the government’s mini-budget, a letter signed by more than 3,000 food bank workers will be delivered to Downing Street.
It includes a warning that those who used to donate to food banks are now seeking their help, while some services are facing “breaking point” even as they are braced for increasing demand in the coming months.
“People who were already unable to afford food are being hit the hardest by relentless rises in energy, food and travel costs,” states the letter compiled by the Trussell Trust, Feeding Britain and the Independent Food Aid Network (Ifan).
The Labour party is looking to capitalise on the government crisis with a series of new adverts as it gears up for the next general election.
The posters attack the Conservatives for damaging Britain’s standing on the world stage, hiking mortgages and crashing the economy.
Toby Helm
Senior Conservatives have welcomed Jeremy Hunt’s arrival as chancellor, saying he had effectively “taken over” running the government from Liz Truss after he unceremoniously dumped her tax-cutting agenda on his first day in office.
One senior Conservative MP said it was a huge relief to have someone in charge at the Treasury who was able to admit to recent mistakes and had made it his mission to restore the government’s credibility with the markets. “It is just so good to have a grownup in the room, someone who commands respect and who has experience after this period of utter madness.”
A former cabinet minister added that Hunt’s media interviews on Saturday, warning that taxes would have to rise and suggesting spending would have to be reined in, meant he was effectively running the show. “Jeremy is saying: I’m in charge now, move over,” said the former minister.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey also appeared to be happy with the changes in Downing Street. Speaking in Washington, he said he had spoken to Hunt on Friday and had a “meeting of minds” on the issue of “fiscal sustainability”.
Liberal Democrat leader calls for an election
The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, has called for a general election, claiming that the problem is not just Liz Truss and the government, but the “whole” Conservative party.
“They can’t agree and therefore I think they all need to go,” he told BBC Breakfast. He admitted that, given the state of the polls, it is unlikely that the Tories will do the “right thing” and hold an election.
But he said “the damage is already done” to the UK economy, in the wake of the mini-budget. Davey said the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as chancellor had not gone far enough in reversing the mini-budget.
The government seemed completely out of touch. I think they’re just taking people for granted. And let’s hope we get a budget that improves things, but I’m afraid I feel a lot of the damage has already been done.
Liz Truss facing mutiny from senior Tory MPs
Ben Quinn
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s UK politics liveblog as the future of the prime minster, Liz Truss, continues to hang by a thread two day after the sacking of her chancellor failed to calm financial markets or win over increasingly mutinous Tory MPs.
I’m Ben Quinn and I’ll be bringing you coverage of developments today as many in the prime minister’s own party predict that her fate may be sealed within days.
The Observer reports today that senior Conservatives will this week hold talks on a “rescue mission” that would see the swift removal of as leader, after the new chancellor Jeremy Hunt dramatically tore up her economic package and signalled a new era of austerity.
A group of senior MPs will meet tomorrow to discuss the prime minister’s future, with some wanting her to resign within days and others saying she is now “in office but not in control”.
Some are threatening to publicly call on Truss to stand down after the implosion of her tax-cutting programme.
Between 15 and 20 former ministers and other senior MPs have been invited to a “dinner of grown-ups”, convened by leading supporters of Rishi Sunak, to plan how and when to remove Truss and install Sunak and fellow leadership contender Penny Mordaunt as a unity pairing.
A source familiar with the conversations said:
They are just going to have to sit down and work things out. It now becomes a rescue mission for the Conservative party and the economy. That’s where we are.
Those looking for further signals to reassure financial markets, or trying to read the latest political runes will want to listen to Hunt – the new chancellor and a figure likened by one Conservative to the government’s new “chief executive” in contrast with Truss’s “chairman” – when he is interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on her show, which starts in just under an hour.
Also doing the broadcast rounds this morning are the financial secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith and the chair of the education committee, Robert Halfon, who are on Sophy Ridge on Sunday, on Sky News, from 0830.
You can find me on Twitter at @BenQuinn75 if you would like to flag up any breaking news today which you feel we should be covering.
Jeremy Hunt warns of ‘very difficult’ decisions ahead on tax and spending as Liz Truss faces mutiny from senior Tories – live | Liz Truss Source link Jeremy Hunt warns of ‘very difficult’ decisions ahead on tax and spending as Liz Truss faces mutiny from senior Tories – live | Liz Truss