Truss tax plans ‘don’t get any support to most vulnerable’

The former chancellor said the foreign secretary would be guilty of “moral failure” if she does not focus on the nation’s poorest, and warned her policies could further stoke inflation.

Ms Truss instead insisted “taxes are too high and they are potentially choking off growth”, as she promised an emergency budget to tackle the situation.

The clash in visions at a hustings in Belfast came as spiralling food prices and the cost of other essentials pushed inflation to a 40-year high.

The Office for National Statistics said the Consumer Prices Index measure of inflation hit 10.1% last month, as the Tory party faced criticism for focusing on the race to replace Boris Johnson rather than announcing fresh support.

Mr Sunak said this autumn and winter he would “especially” support the most vulnerable in society, as he warned “millions of people are at risk of a very tough time”.

He told party members: “What I will not do is pursue policies that risk making inflation far worse and lasting far longer.

“And especially if those policies seem to amount to borrowing £50 billion and putting that on the country’s credit card then asking our kids and our grandkids to pick up the tab, because for me that’s not right, it’s not responsible, and it’s certainly not Conservative.”

He alleged that Ms Truss’s plan is to say “well I believe in tax cuts, not direct support” while announcing changes that would see someone on her salary receive £1,700 of help.

Someone on the national living wage would get a tax cut of £1 a week, he said, while it is worth “precisely zero” for a pensioner who is not working.

“If we don’t directly help those vulnerable groups, those on the lowest incomes, those pensioners, then it will be a moral failure of the Conservative government and I don’t think the British people will forgive us for that,” Mr Sunak said.

He also vowed to be “much tougher” on the welfare system, arguing that one of the main problems facing firms is “getting access to workers and getting people to actually work”.

He said: “I strongly believe that part of the answer to this problem is being much tougher on our welfare system to get people off benefits and into work.”

Ms Truss alleged that less revenue would be raised for the public purse if taxation remains too high because businesses are less likely to invest and people are less likely to set up businesses or “go into work”.

She told Tory members: “I think we have got to the stage in our economy where taxes are too high and they are potentially choking off growth.”

l Cost-of-living crisis: page 10