Rishi Sunak is conducting a review of the pledges he made during his Tory leadership campaign to assess whether they are still “deliverable”, Downing Street has said. The Prime Minister’s press secretary said the economic situation had changed since the campaign over the summer when Mr Sunak lost out to Ms Truss.
“We are looking at all the campaign pledges and we are looking at whether it is the right time to take them forward,” she said. We need to take some time to make sure what is deliverable and what is possible, and engaging with stakeholders and with the relevant secretaries of state as well.
“Obviously, those are pledges that were made a few months ago now and the context is somewhat different, obviously, economically. We need to look again.”
It came as Mr Sunak reversed his decision to skip the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt next week, bowing to pressure from activists, his own environment adviser and Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister accepted there is “no long-term prosperity without action on climate change” as he confirmed he will attend the UN talks in Sharm El Sheikh that start on Sunday.
Mr Sunak had been declining to go, arguing that he needed to focus on the “depressing domestic challenges” as he worked on the autumn Budget with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Downing Street said he changed his mind after making “good progress” ahead of the financial statement, but Labour accused the Prime Minister of having been “dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing”.
