Truss says he has to do ‘what I think is right’ when asked about criticism of mini budget
Q: Can you reassure listeners that your judgment is better than that of the likes of the IMF and the Bank of England, who have criticized the mini-budget?
Truss says:
I have to do what I think is right for the country and what will help move our country forward.
Updated at 12.04 BST
Key events
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Key Events (17)Liz Truss (33)Chris Philp (4)Kwasi Kwarteng (4)Rima Ahmed (3)
Here’s a clip from Liz Truss’ interview on Radio Norfolk earlier.
‘I have to do what I think is right’: Liz Truss defends mini-budget on BBC Radio Norfolk – audio
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey renews call for parliament to be withdrawn
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has renewed his call for the Conservative party conference to be canceled so parliament can be recalled. He said:
There is no way the Conservative party can hold its conference while the British economy is in a tailspin. The arrogance of Liz Truss and Tory ministers is frankly an insult to the millions of people who now face higher bills as a direct result of last week’s Budget. From this weekend they will leave their positions in Downing Street, leaving behind a mess and heading for the cocktails and mutual pigtails of the classic conference season.
In one fell swoop, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng crashed the economy, wrecked the pound and paved the way for record interest rate rises.
Innocent mortgage borrowers will be left to pick up the bill for this gross incompetence. It is time for Parliament to remember and pass new measures to save families and pensioners who cannot cope with this mortgage crisis. This misguided budget cannot survive any longer.
Updated at 12.25pm BST
Ken Clarke is urging the government to make a statement soon to reassure markets
Ken Clarke, the former Tory chancellor, has told Times Radio that the government needs to make a statement soon to calm markets in the face of the mini-budget crisis. He said:
Ideally, that statement should come in the next two to three days. But we don’t want to [to rush] on something else more stupid.
Basically, we cannot have both the government and the Bank [of England] to say they can’t do anything else until November, that would be very, very worrying.
If the pound sinks further, they may have to retract some of the measures.
This morning, Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, appeared to rule out the publication of the medium-term fiscal plan being pushed forward to provide early reassurance. (See 11:36 a.m.)
Clarke, who has been scathing in his criticism of the mini-budget in recent days, also said no other Conservative government in his lifetime would have made such a mistake. He said:
I still hope that in two years’ time they can look like a normal, competent Conservative government, because no Conservative government in my lifetime would have ever made such a mistake.
Fiscal discipline or good housekeeping, like Margaret [Thatcher] He always said, he was one of the very strong cards that the government had because he was considered good at running the economy by the public.
Updated at 12.26pm BST
Scotland’s Deputy First Minister says Truss’s stance on the mini-budget is not sustainable
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister and former finance secretary, told MSPs this morning that he thought the defense of the UK’s mini-budget was untenable. Giving evidence to the Covid-19 committee at Holyrood, he said:
If the UK financial system collapses, they will have to change it. This morning is a mess, an absolute mess, a total mess. I have never seen anything like it in my life.
So I have no idea how it will prevail.
Why does this happen? It is because the markets do not believe that the UK no longer believes in fiscal sustainability.
If the UK government wants to show the markets that the UK government still believes in fiscal sustainability and wants to protect the fiscal stance it established last Friday, it has only one place to go: cut spending.
Swinney also said he didn’t see the mini-budget as conservative. He told another MSP committee:
Actually, I wouldn’t accuse [the plans] being a conservative, there are certain protections of core values that are associated with conservatism and I don’t recognize that in last Friday’s financial statement.
John Swinney. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Updated at 11.49 BST
The Minister of Finance seems to rule out bringing forward the publication of the medium-term fiscal plan
Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, is under pressure to bring forward the publication of his medium-term fiscal plan. He said this week that the plan, which will outline how the government aims to meet its fiscal rules and reduce debt over the medium term, will be set out and will coincide with the release of an economic forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility. out on November 23. Some conservatives say that’s too long to wait for an announcement that could settle the market.
But in his interview on the Today program this morning, Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, appeared to rule out the date change. Asked if there were any circumstances in which progress could be made, he replied: “The statement is set for the 23rd.”
Updated at 11.39 BST
Labor has again called on the government to reconsider its mini-budget. Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, told BBC News:
This was an act of unwise choice that has wreaked havoc on the financial markets. We had the extraordinary intervention of the Bank of England to prevent the big pension funds from falling off a cliff.
It’s really important now that we try to restore some stability in these markets and, in the long term, restore the country’s economic credibility.
Updated at 11.24am BST
This is from Sky’s Scott Beasley, he underlines why Liz Truss’s refusal to accept that the mini-budget was linked to the mortgage market turmoil was wrong.
🏡 Mortgage market: 40% of products now taken off the market from the ‘mini budget’
📉 More 321 products withdrawn during the night
📉 In addition to a record of 935 withdrawals the day before
So in just 6 days since the Chancellor spoke:
📉 1,621 withdrawn products leave 2,340 for sale
— Scott Beasley (@SkyScottBeasley) September 29, 2022
Truss criticized for wrongly saying no household will pay more than £2,500 under the energy price guarantee
In her interview this morning, Liz Truss at times gave the impression that her energy price guarantee will mean no household will face a fuel bill of more than £2,500 a year.
This is not correct. Under the plan, unit prices are capped at a rate that means the average household will pay no more than £2,500. But if you use more gas and electricity than average homes, you’ll pay more. According to the laws of math, half of the people will pay more than the average.
Some of the reporting on this has probably not been as clear as it should have been because headlines resist subtlety and stating that average bills are theoretically capped at £2,500 a year probably means more to people than explaining that the unit prices are actually capped at 34.0p/kWh for electricity and 10.3p/kWh for gas.
In his interviews, when discussing the £2,500 figure, Truss mainly said it applied to a “typical” bill. (Typical isn’t the same as average, but that doesn’t matter.)
But sometimes he said all bills would be capped at £2,500. He told Radio Leeds that people in West Yorkshire would not be facing energy bills of £6,000. He continued: “Through the energy price guarantee, the maximum will be £2,500.” And he told Radio Lancashire: “That’s why we’ve taken steps to make sure people’s bills don’t go over £2,500.”
Fact-checking organization Full Fact has criticized Truss for misleading voters. Will Moy, chief executive of the organisation, said:
Only yesterday we wrote to the Prime Minister to be wrong. The government’s energy plans will affect every household in the UK this winter. And yet Liz Truss has repeatedly misled listeners this morning.
Now he must publicly correct his mistake to ensure people are not misled about their energy prices and are left with unexpected and unaffordable energy bills this winter.
£2,500 is *not* the most a family will pay on their energy bills this year. Yesterday we wrote to the Prime Minister to make a mistake.
This morning, he repeated the false claim again in local BBC interviews.
The public deserves better.https://t.co/zphIoe0PwL
— Full Fact (@FullFact) September 29, 2022
UPDATE: Thanks to all readers who checked the statement: “According to the laws of math, half the people will pay more than the average.” You are right that this is not accurate if you take the mean as the average (the total of all payments, divided by the number of people paying). It is only technically accurate if you take the mean for the mean (the payment exactly at the midpoint between the highest and the lowest). I’m afraid I was using the word in a general sense, to try to make a point with some force and clarity.
Updated at 12.51 BST
Truss interview round: verdict from Twitter comments
And here’s what journalists and commentators are saying on Twitter about Liz Truss’ round of morning interviews. The verdict is harsh.
From the Observer’s Toby Helm
To hear Liz Truss on local radio saying the mini budget is going as planned in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place
— Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) September 29, 2022
From Dan Hodges of the Mail on Sunday
Liz Truss currently sounds like a pre-recorded message telling you she’s sorry the government is out, but please call back later.
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) September 29, 2022
This is a terrible round of media from Liz Truss. Robotics…