Nadhim Zahawi has confirmed taxes will go up as he gets set for his first day as the Chancellor.
The former Education Secretary posed for photographers outside the door to his new office on 1 Horse Guards Road after Rishi Sunak's shock resignation last night.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about tax rises, the new Chancellor said: “Yes, but, at the same time, we’ve had £407 billion input to help the economy and people’s livelihoods and life to get through the pandemic.
“We’ve just come out of the equivalent of a world war. We have to rebuild the economy and return to growth – that is what your listeners will want me to focus on.
“It’s my first day in the job … and I need to be able to just make sure I go back, review everything; nothing is off the table.
“I’ll come back on your programme and happily talk about where I think we can do more on taxes.
“We are determined to do that, as was my predecessor – he was determined to do that on personal taxation, and of course on other taxes as well.”
He told the programme that his task is to rebuild the economy and return to growth.
“But ’23 is going to be really hard for us. I described that in my earlier remarks. But of course I will continue to share that evidence. I want to make sure we bear down on inflation,” he said.
Who is Nadhim Zahawi?
Appointed Chancellor amid the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, he will also be charged with putting together a crucial autumn Budget as inflation bites.
Born in Iraq to a Kurdish family, Mr Zahawi came to the UK as a nine-year-old when his parents fled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Believed to be one of the richest politicians in the House of Commons, he helped found polling company YouGov after studying chemical engineering at University College London.
He has often said that his own personal backstory has deeply influenced his view of Britain and he recently spoke of the debt he owed poet Philip Larkin as he improved his English as a teenager. Seen as a “safe pair of hands”, he came to the Education Secretary role following the sacking of Gavin Williamson, who had become deeply unpopular with the public over the exams fiasco during the Covid-19 pandemic.
His tenure in the role has not been without difficulty and in recent weeks he had been attempting to see off potential strike action by teachers, which he has labelled “unforgivable” months after children returned to school following the disruption of the pandemic.
Mr Zahawi became a junior education minister under Theresa May, but his loyalty to Boris Johnson has never seriously wavered.
