Chancellor Rishi has said he will do what he can to help reduce the effects of the spiralling cost of living in next week's spring statement. But he said he "can't solve every problem".
Speaking in an interview with Conservative MP Paul Maynard at the party's spring forum in Blackpool this morning, he said factors such as global inflation are "somewhat out of my control". He said he had "enormous sympathy" with people who are struggling to pay their bills.
Mr Sunak said: "It is about taking stock of the situation which, of course, is difficult. I can see that, and I have enormous sympathy for what people are going through at the moment and that's why we will always be there to help make a difference where we can.
"I can't solve every problem, no government can solve every problem, particularly when you are grappling with global inflationary forces - they are somewhat out of my control.
"But as you saw a month or so ago when we announced the very significant intervention to help people meet some of the additional costs of energy bills, where we can make a difference, of course I can - I'm always going to do that, we've done it over the last two years. So, we will have an update on the situation and a little bit of a look forward to where we are heading."
Mr Sunak said it had been necessary to put up taxes to rebuild the public finances following the Covid-19 outbreak, but that was over now. He said his focus was turning to how to cut taxes.
"That is done. We have made the difficult decisions that we had to make. My priority going forward is to cut taxes. I made that very clear at the Budget," he said.
Mr Sunak defended the rises he had introduced. He argued that it would not have been "economically responsible" not to have addressed the problems caused by the pandemic.
"I did not get into this to have to put up people's taxes. I'm Conservative, I'm a Conservative chancellor, it's the last thing I wanted to do," the Chancellor said.
"I also take really seriously my responsibility to you, our kids and to the nation's finances and making sure we fixed the problems that coronavirus caused where our borrowing went up to levels we haven't seen since World War II and our debt was forecast to keep growing and growing and growing into the future.
"I didn't think that was right. I didn't think it was morally right. I didn't think it was economically responsible. It was not easy but I do believe it was the right thing to do."
Mr Sunak said the Government had gone from "crisis to crisis" under Boris Johnson as he discussed the response to the coronavirus pandemic. He added: "It has been a little bit - for all of us actually, the Prime Minister more than anyone - just crisis to crisis, it feels like that. Which isn't great, I mean it's not great for any of us."
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