I had the right ideas about growth, says Truss

LIZ Truss is to champion the case for tax cuts to boost growth when she makes her first major intervention this weekend since leaving No 10.

The former prime minister is set to outline the ‘policy agenda’ she believes is required to stimulate the UK’s economy in an article for a Sunday newspaper.

Despite her premiership ending in turmoil after she was forced to reverse almost all of her planned tax cuts, Ms Truss will restate the need for a smaller state.

‘She will reflect on what happened and the policy agenda that is required to deliver the growth everybody wants,’ a source close to the ex-PM told the Daily Mail last night.

She is also expected to outline the ‘institutional barriers’ she felt stopped her delivering her agenda for growth in the article.

Conservative colleagues supportive of her views have formed the ‘Conservative Growth Group’ to lobby the Government over taxes and City deregulation ahead of the Budget.

A WhatsApp group formed to support the ‘Liz for Leader’ push last year has been revived and has seen several Tories joining recently, Sky News reported. One source said: ‘There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.’

The Conservative Growth Group was reportedly formed last month with around two dozen MPs – including the ex-PM.

Ms Truss has kept a low profile since being ousted in October, but allies said that after a period of ‘reflection’ she is ready to use her platform to share her views.

She ‘fully intends’ to stand as an MP again in her South West Norfolk constituency, but does not expect to return to ministerial office, sources said.

Instead, Ms Truss will use her influence around Westminster and the world to champion

causes she is interested in. This month she will fly to Japan to attend a conference on threats posed by China, with the former prime ministers of Australia and Belgium, Scott Morrison and Guy Verhofstadt.

In a speech to the conference, Ms Truss will raise concerns about China’s ambitions towards Taiwan.

Just before Christmas she visited a gathering of centre-Right figures from across the globe in Washington DC. It emerged that, following a series of private meetings while she was across the pond, she told US politicians she ‘remained determined to rouse Britain from economic stagnation’.

According to US website Politico, Ms Truss also made it known that she did not trust her successor Rishi Sunak to do the job.

It was claimed that she acknowledged ‘mistakes’ in the way she pushed ahead with her economic plans, but was not said to have shied away from her low-tax agenda on her US trip.

Politico reported that Ms Truss told Kevin Hern, a member of the US House of Representatives, that she wanted to create a similar body to the Republican Study Committee – an influential group in Washington – to ‘house all of their ideas into a collective group in order to hold the current Prime Minister accountable,’ according to Mr Hern.