Liz Truss to raise corporation tax in another humiliating U-turn
Liz Truss has performed a humiliating U-turn over her flagship plan to cut corporation tax, as she insisted she would hang on as prime minister despite being forced to sack her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, over the government’s disastrous mini-budget.
At a hastily called and notably brief Downing Street press conference, soon after she replaced Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt, a notably subdued Truss told reporters that parts of the mini-budget “went further and faster than markets were expecting”.
“So the way we are delivering our mission right now has to change. We need to act now to reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline,” Truss said, adding that she would thus not, as promised, cancel the scheduled rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% next year.
This would save £18bn a year on the largely uncosted mini-budget, Truss said, and would “act as a down payment on our full medium-term fiscal plan”.
The move is the second climbdown after Truss’s massive package of unfunded tax cuts and spending sent the pound tumbling and plunged markets into turmoil. But in a downbeat performance that seems unlikely to reassure her critics in the party, Truss showed no contrition, and said she could stay on as prime minister.
Asked why she should stay in the post, Truss replied: “I am absolutely determined to see through what I have promised – to deliver a higher growth, more prosperous United Kingdom.”
Answering just four questions, Truss declined to apologise or take personal responsibility for the turmoil in the markets since the mini-budget, and for the Tories’ subsequent poll slump.
“What I’ve done today is made sure that we have economic stability in this country,” she said when asked what credibility she had left. “Jeremy Hunt as
Read more on theguardian.com
