Liz Truss denied ruling out extra help for energy bills beyond tax cuts as the Conservative leadership front-runner began what appeared to be the start of a U-turn on the issue.
Truss’ comments, made to reporters in Manchester, drew a scathing response from Rishi Sunak’s campaign, with a source saying her approach would be “funny if it weren’t so serious”, another sign of growing bitterness between the two camps.
On Tuesday, Truss appeared to double down on his insistence that he could only offer help by reversing the recent rise in National Insurance and temporarily suspending green charges, the latter of which make up around £150 of the average annual energy bill, which is forecast to exceed £4,200 next year.
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But asked in Manchester if she ruled out some form of grant to help with energy bills, Truss said: “That’s not what I said.”
She added: “What I have said is that my priority is to make sure we don’t take people’s money and then give it back to them later. I believe in people keeping their own money and I believe in a low tax economy.
“What’s wrong is taking money from people in the form of taxes and then giving it back to them in the form of benefits. This is Gordon Brown-style economics and I don’t support it.
Truss reiterated his preference for tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and will not help retirees or those out of work: “My priority is not to take money from people and then give it back to them later. I believe in keeping their own money and I believe in a low tax economy. This is how we will drive growth.
“I won’t announce the contents of a future budget at this stage in August, but I can assure people that I will do everything in my power to make sure that energy is available and we get through this winter.”
Referring to Truss’s frequent description of her Leeds upbringing, a Sunak campaign source said: “Can an honest Yorkshire woman call a U-turn a U-turn? It would be funny if it weren’t so serious – millions of people lose sleep at night wondering how they’re going to cope with £4,000 bills. It does not act in the national interest.
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In another sign of an apparent shift in focus after days of predictions that Truss, as the likely next prime minister, would have to deal with concerns about energy bills, one of her key allies said she would consider the full spending package for life after entering office.
Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said Boris Johnson’s government was “working on a package of life support that the next prime minister can take into account when he takes office”.
In a thread on Twitter, he said: “It is absolutely right that we consider these options in the round when the new Prime Minister takes office – rather than announcing new policies at no cost without seeing all the details of the pressures that people may face , during leadership elections.”
The Sunak campaign earlier called Truss’s economic approach “clean as mud” after James Cleverley, the Education Secretary and a leading Truss backer, said she would “look at” other measures to help people with their bills, the first sign of an obvious change of tack.
Also on Wednesday, former Tory leader Michael Howard said he agreed with Dominic Raab, the Sunak-backed justice minister and deputy prime minister, who said no more help with energy bills would be a “pre-election suicide note” for the Conservatives.
Howard, now a Tory peer, told the BBC Radio 4 program today: “We can only hope to win the next election if inflation is under control, borrowing is under control and interest rates are falling.
“Rishi Sunak is the only candidate whose politics have any chance of achieving this result.
“I really agree with Dominic Raab that the method that Liz Truss is proposing would be suicidal. We’ve seen it before in the 1970s. It led to a recession and a Labor government and I didn’t want to see that again.
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