Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said nothing is “off the table” when asked if he will abandon more of Prime Minister Liz Truss’ tax cut plans, confirming that his is now the leading government voice on U.K. fiscal policy.
Hunt declined to rule out delaying by a year the prime minister’s plan to cut the basic rate of income tax, a move that would amount to another U-turn on a key plank of Truss’ “mini-budget.” A delay could save 5 billion pounds ($6 billion), according to a report in the Sunday Times.
On Friday, having already reversed two planned tax cuts, Truss requested that the newly appointed Hunt stick to the remaining measures in her fiscal plan. By Saturday, Hunt made clear that calming the markets is his priority; on Sunday he refused to rule out abandoning another of Truss’ key policies. Truss and Hunt were to meet Sunday at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire.
“I’m not taking anything off the table,” Hunt told the BBC on Sunday. “There is one thing we can do and that is what I am going to do, which is to show the markets, the world, indeed people watching at home, that we can properly account for every penny of our tax and spending plans.”
The government will not return to the kind of austerity policies seen in the early 2010s, but departments will need to find “efficiencies,” Hunt said.
“I was in the Cabinet in 2010 when we had that first period of austerity. I don’t think we’re going to have anything like that this time,” Hunt said, adding this is a “compassionate” Conservative government that will take care of the most vulnerable.
Hunt also said he has no desire to succeed Truss if she is ousted by the ruling Conservative Party, amid widespread reports of Tory MPs calling for a change of leadership.
“I think having run two leadership campaigns, and by the way failed in both of them, the desire to be leader has been clinically excised from me,” he told the BBC. “I want to be a good chancellor; it’s going to be very, very difficult but that’s what I’m focusing on.”
Tory unrest
While Conservative MPs are extremely angry with Truss’ leadership, some are seeking a period of calm to settle the markets.
Robert Halfon, who chairs Parliament’s education committee, told Sky News on Sunday that the government “has looked like libertarian jihadists” and “treated the whole country” as “laboratory mice.” But he stopped short of calling for Truss to quit. Former Cabinet minister Matt Hancock told the BBC that Truss should reshuffle her top team of ministers.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt became the first lawmaker from Truss’ own party to publicly call on the prime minister to resign.
“Liz Truss should go now,” Blunt told Bloomberg on Sunday. Other Tory MPs have told Bloomberg News privately they expect Truss to be ousted from power within weeks.
In the U.S., officials joked about the U.K.’s fiscal position as the International Monetary Fund’s meetings came to a close. Separately, U.S. President Joe Biden paused from eating an ice cream to spurn diplomatic niceties and criticize Truss’ tax cuts.
“It’s predictable. I mean, I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake,” Biden told reporters Saturday during a visit to Portland, Oregon.
The opposition Labour Party’s business spokesman Jonathan Reynolds told Sky on Sunday “the last three weeks have been quite frankly a disgrace and an embarrassment to anyone who cares about this country and the people who live here.”
