Truss: I’ll make no apology for tax cuts

As critics say her Chancellor’s mini-Budget panders to well off, she insists to MoS – it WILL benefit everyone

LIZ TRUSS today vows to unleash a ‘decade of dynamism’ as she defends Friday’s Budget against criticism of tax cuts for higher earners.

The Prime Minister declares in an article for The Mail on Sunday that she is ‘unapologetic’ about her pursuit of a ‘low-tax nation rich in opportunity’, despite the nervous reaction of the markets and some of her own backbenchers.

In his striking announcement to the Commons, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng scrapped the top 45p rate of tax and cut 1p from the basic rate in the biggest package of tax cuts by a British Government for half a century.

The move is part of a ‘dash for growth’ which is intended to turbocharge the economy – and boost the Tories’ chances of winning the next Election.

Making her first public comments on the so-called ‘mini-Budget’ – which also included cuts to stamp

duty, National Insurance and Corporation Tax – Ms Truss pledges that her administration will be defined by ‘taking tough choices and doing things differently’ from her Tory predecessors in No 10, adding: ‘We will usher in a decade of dynamism by focusing relentlessly on economic growth.’

Dismissing criticism that the £45billion worth of measures would disproportionately benefit the rich, Ms Truss writes: ‘Growth means families have more money in their pockets, more people can work in highly paid jobs and more businesses can invest in their future.

‘It provides more money to fund our public services, like schools, the NHS and the police.

‘We will be unapologetic in this pursuit... Everything we do will be tested against whether it helps our economy to grow or holds it back.’

Ms Truss also announced that the Government would be introducing new ‘growth loans’ to help businesses that have been trading for fewer than five years to expand, in recognition that small businesses are ‘the lifeblood of the economy’.

The measures, which came after the Bank of England warned that the UK may already be in a recession and raised interest rates to 2.25 per cent, will be paid for by tens of billions of pounds in Government borrowing – a move which led to falls in the value of the pound and on the stock market.

Labour seized on Mr Kwarteng’s abolition of the top rate of tax, which will hand an average £10,000 back to the country’s top 660,000 earners. As her party gathered in Liverpool for its annual conference, Deputy Leader Angela Rayner described Ms Truss’s ‘trickle-down economics’ approach as ‘a very dangerous gamble on our economy and future generations’.

She said: ‘I don’t accept the argument of trickle-down economics – give those at the top loads more money and that will filter down to those at the bottom. That’s not how it works. We’re going to saddle the next generation with more debt.’

However, business chiefs welcomed the measures, with the Confederation of British Industry saying there was ‘no choice but to go for growth’.

Former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft said the Budget indicated the country seemed ‘after 12 years to have a Conservative government’.

According to the Treasury, the measures will pay for themselves if they succeed in adding an extra one per cent a year to GDP.

In her MoS article, the Prime Minister reinforces her Thatcherite credentials, saying: ‘We believe people should be in control of their lives and keep more of the money they earn. That is why it would not be right to allow families and businesses to be lumped with the heaviest tax burden in 70 years.

‘People know better than any Government what to do with their