Liz Truss vowed to do “all that I can” to help households struggling with the cost of living crisis, in a change of tone that her Conservative leadership rival Rishi Sunak described as a “major U-turn on the biggest issue facing the country”.
The foreign secretary, frontrunner in the race to be the next prime minister, has previously said she favours tax cuts over “handouts” as the best way to alleviate the inflationary surge and assist people facing energy bills that could top £4,000 a year by next spring.
Her critics, led by Sunak, claim she is indifferent to the plight of the poor and pensioners, millions of whom do not pay tax. His team called it a “serious political and moral misjudgment”.
Truss had said: “I understand how difficult the rising cost of living is making life for many and, if elected, I will do all that I can to help struggling households.” Truss also reiterated that taxing people more and then handing them back their own money - what her team calls Sunak’s “socialist tax and spend” - is not a Conservative approach.
Neither Truss nor Sunak has outlined how exactly they would address the issue but the former chancellor has said he would make direct payments amounting to hundreds of pounds to the poorest households.
“It’s all very well offering empty words about ‘Doing all you can’,” the Sunak campaign said. “Taking action means providing direct support, which Truss has previously dismissed as ‘handouts’.” Sunak said that the next prime minister had “a moral responsibility” to help poorer households through the winter, saying he would rather lose the Tory leadership race than “win on a false promise”. Last week Truss was forced to abandon a policy to cut public sector pay outside London and the south-east to save almost £9bn. “Mistakes like this would cost the Conservative party the next election,” said a Sunak aide.
However, Truss is viewed by pollsters and bookmakers as the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest, which will be decided by party members in a ballot, with the result announced on September 5.
