Truss faces first PMQs since turmoil after mini-budget

Controversial: Politics & Govt Politics & Govt: In The News
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What could Liz Truss be pressed on?

After a tumultuous first month in office, Liz Truss will face questions from MPs shortly for her second PMQs since entering office.

We’ve looked at some of the topics Truss could be pressed on today:

  • The mini-budget: The reaction from Tory MPs and the markets to 31 Oct statement will give the government a better indication of whether its mini-budget can survive contact with political reality
  • Uprating benefits: The former chancellor Rishi Sunak had promised to tie benefits payments to inflation. But Truss’s government is yet to commit to this
  • Fracking: Truss has said fracking will only resume where there is local consent. But Conservative opinion is divided on fracking, which was halted in 2019 following opposition from environmentalists
  • Planning reform: Another big plank of Truss’s programme is reform of planning law, but no date has been set to debate these reforms. Planning reform is a touchy subject for some Tory MPs, particularly those in rural areas
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Truss commits on no-fault evictions

Graham Stringer MP asks the PM whether she will commit to getting rid of no-fault evictions. The PM says she will commit to that.

A ban on no-fault evictions is due to become law next year after being promised by Boris Johnson at the 2019 general election.

There had been some suggestions that the plans - which would stop landlords in England evicting tenants without giving a reson - could be scrapped by the government

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Starmer begins by saying the loss of Sir David Amess was deeply felt across the benches and he also sends his condolences to people in Creeslough, where 10 people were killed in an explosion.

His first question to Prime Minister Truss is about Business Secretary Rees Mogg’s comments to media outlets that UK market turmoil wasn’t sparked by the government’s mini-budget.

He asks: “Does the prime minister agree with him?”

Truss responds that the government has taken “decisive action to make sure that people are not facing energy bills of £6,000 for two years”.

“We’ve also taken decisive action to make sure that we are not facing the highest taxes for 70 years in the face of a global economic slowdown,” she says.

“As a result of our action… we will see higher growth and lower inflation.”

Is that an answer to the question?

PMQs is too hectic (1) … I’ll wait for a summary … :open_mouth:

(1) The waffle and bluster days of BJ are, apparently, gone … :laughing:

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In the interim:

Starmer says Truss is going ahead with £18bn of tax cuts for the richest businesses and “those who live off stocks and shares”.

He asks: why does Truss expect working people to pick up bill for unfunded tax cuts for those at the top?

He also asks if she will stick to a pledge during the Tory leadership contest that she is “not planning public spending reductions”.

Truss says she will “absolutely” stick to a pledge made during her leadership campaign that she is not planning public spending reductions.

“We are spending almost £1tn of public spending. We were spending £700bn back in 2010,” she says. “What we will make sure is that over the medium-term the debt is falling. But we will do that not by cutting public spending, but by making sure we spend public money well.”

Comment:

PM claims there won’t be cuts - but will there?

Chris Mason, Political editor

One line that stood out from the Prime Minister was when she claimed there wouldn’t be any cuts in government spending. And yet senior figures in government acknowledge that cuts are coming.

How do these things match up? Well — I’m trying to find out. It may be that budgets don’t keep up with inflation and so shrink in real terms but the actual number doesn’t. That said, given the scale of cuts some, such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have suggested may be needed, it’s hard to see how these numbers add up.

Is LT lying … :scream:

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Not at all. In 1890, the 1-way fee to cross the Warburton Toll Bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal was set at 1/2 crown (12.5p in modern money), and hasn’t changed since. You can do a lot with 12.5p.

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12.5p is half a crown - 2/6 … :crown:

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So it was. I have amended accordingly. :+1:

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Surprisingly, at one time five bob was a dollar … :moneybag:

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I only caught the last few minutes of PMQ (or TUT as maybe we should refer to it…Truss’s U Turn), and the chamber did seem unusually quiet with empty seats and not so many standing.

Heard some labour fella quote Kwartang’s assessment of fracking a few years ago being of no value to the UK at all, and unTrussworthy’s non reply to the question of whether her chancellor was right or wrong.

What is it with politicians and their inability to answer simple questions? If I got into an uber outside my house in South Manchester and asked to be taken to Salford Quays, I wouldn’t really find it acceptable if the driver talked incessantly, causing me to doze and ponder over whether life is worth living, and drove me to Southampton Dockyard. Yet MP’s think that that would be just fine and dandy.

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Give it time. She’s only just got started :rofl::rofl:

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PMQs – snap verdict

Tory MPs will not have found that performance by Liz Truss reassuring. In politics, as in life, to solve a problem you have to at first face up to what it is, and Truss is still for the most part arguing that the problem with interest rates in the UK is primarily or overwhelmingly a global one (it isn’t – see 11.48am) and that the mini-budget was not culpable because primarily it comprised an energy saving package (it did – but it was not that element of the package that alarmed the markets). All politicians use talking points to defend their position, but they only tend to work if they are at least 50% plausible. Truss did not sound quite as detached from reality as Jacob Rees-Mogg did this morning – she refused to endorse what he said – but mostly she was relying on denial, and it is hard to see that persuading anyone.

This meant Starmer had an easy target, and her clobbered her policy position quite effectively. Truss’s attempts to retaliate were relatively feeble. Starmer ridiculed the suggestion that he had had a Damascene conversion on the health and social care levy (which Labour voted against last year, when the Tories were in favour) and he rightly pointed out that he called for an energy price freeze before she did. Most voters can understand why an opposition party might propose a spending commitment for just six months, not two years, and Sajid Javid’s comments this morning (see 11.24am) suggest there may be a lot of Tories who believe Starmer’s version of this policy is more responsible than Truss’s.

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Hi

I watched her performance but must admit I was confused by it.

I am no expert on markets and economics, and I am obviously missing something.

I cannot understand the logic for borrowing to pay for tax cuts.

JRM ,on the TV this morning did not confuse me, just intensely annoyed me.

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How the heck do you think she felt, and she was saying it!? :joy::joy:

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Feeling confused … :question:

You will be when Clueless Coffey, as Deputy PM, stands in for Dim Truss … :101:

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I had no idea what was going on when I watched it this morning. From her evading the questions, going on about energy, her facial expressions, the lot…I think I was as confused as she looked! :017:

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PMQs I haven’t seen it yet , after reading this thread I don’t think I’ll bother …I’m confused enough already :crazy_face:

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Have you ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen nightmare’s, specifically the Amy’s Baking Company episode? There are similarities between this and unTrussworthy in action.

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As the cost of government borrowing soared further, Truss used her second PMQs appearance to “absolutely” rule out further spending cuts, instead allowing borrowing to rise over the next few years.

The remarks failed to calm the markets, with the price of 20-year UK bonds hitting new lows on Wednesday afternoon after the Bank of England insisted its £65bn package of support for the bond market would end on Friday.

On the day of her first parliamentary showdown since the Conservative party conference, MPs renewed serious conversations about the prospect of replacing her. The prime minister has pledged to step up engagement with restive MPs with a series of round tables over the next week.

No 10 has publicly denied there is any new examination of the tax cuts announced in the mini-budget, including tweaks to the timing of the income tax cut or a reevaluation of the cancelled corporation tax rise.

The former chancellor Sajid Javid (Cons, Bromsgrove) and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Mel Stride (Cons, Central Devon), voiced fears about the current approach and suggested the Treasury would need to look again at the measures announced by the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, last month.

At a meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee, MPs described her performance as “just appalling” and raised serious concerns about mortgage rates and polls showing a hefty Labour lead.

The chair of the education select committee, Robert Halfon (Cons, Harlow), told Truss she had “trashed the last 10 years of workers’ Conservatism”, citing achievements under David Cameron and Boris Johnson such as apprenticeships and levelling up, and comparing those priorities to tax cuts and banker bonuses. The MP Julian Lewis (Cons, New Forest East) asked if Truss was planning to compensate mortgage holders.

Leaving the room, one MP said the atmosphere was “funereal” and another that the prime minister had “done absolutely nothing to reassure colleagues whatsoever”. Another described the situation as impossible.

In tweets shortly before Truss’s appearance at the 1922, Stride said there had been a question over whether “any plan that does not now include at least some element of further row back on the tax package can actually satisfy the markets”.

He tweeted: “Credibility might now be swinging towards evidence of a clear change in tack rather than just coming up with other measures that try to square the fiscal circle."

Has Dim Truss painted herself into a corner, though? Kwazy Kwarteng will, allegedly, be applying more coats to the financial flooring of their shared “vision” at the end of October, effectively sealing any escape route (and we know that LT has trouble finding her way out of a room anyway).

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:astonished: what Truss was effing and jeffing …surely not ….I’m well shocked :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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I think everyone else was effing any jeffing while the blonde bombshell was off on one, ignoring anything being said to her and living in a fantasy world in which she was the greatest and everyone else who criticised her was wrong.

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