For the second time in a week – following her earlier backlash on regional pay – campaigners claimed the Tory leadership frontrunner’s comments had been “misconstrued”. But leadership rival Rishi Sunak said the secretary of state was “simply wrong” to rely on tax cuts instead of direct payments to help the millions of people struggling to pay their energy bills. He signaled he was planning another multi-billion aid package if he became prime minister in September. But both candidates’ proposals were dismissed as “wholly inadequate” by Margaret Thatcher’s former energy secretary, Lord Howell of Guildford. With immediate action needed to prevent “terrible” inflation that would “paralyze the lives of an enormous number of families in this country,” the candidates’ promises of future relief were like Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake.” said the Tories. peer Anti-poverty campaigners and experts told the Independent that the new prime minister must immediately double the £15bn support package Mr Sunak announced in May to avoid hardship for millions of Britons this winter. And Gordon Brown called on Sunak, Truss and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to agree an immediate emergency budget or risk “condemning millions of vulnerable and blameless children and pensioners to a winter of abject poverty”. A report commissioned by the former Labor prime minister found that families will be up to £1,600 worse off this year, even after paying existing government support of up to £1,200 per household. The new report, carried out by Professor Donald Hirsch at Loughborough University, found that 13 million households – a fraction under half the country – are at risk of fuel poverty after the next increase in the energy price cap to £3,700 or more in October. . Penny Mordaunt backs Liz Truss in Tory leadership race after she was ruled out (PA wire) “A financial time bomb will explode for families in October as a second round of fuel price rises in six months sends shockwaves through every household and pushes millions over the edge,” Mr Brown said. If the prime minister and candidates to replace him refused to submit an emergency package, he said, “parliament should be recalled to force them to do so.” Fears of a devastating cash crunch for families were fueled by the Bank of England’s forecast on Thursday of inflation above 13% and a five-quarter recession. And the cost of living was forced to the top of the agenda in the Tory leadership contest by Ms Truss’s comment that she would offer help “by reducing the tax burden, not handing out handouts”. Mr Sunak responded to her comments, saying: “It is simply wrong to rule out further immediate support at this time, as Liz Truss has done. And, moreover, her tax proposals are not going to do much to help people like retirees or those on low incomes who are exactly the kind of families that will need help.” But Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt denied Ms Truss had ruled out expanding direct payments. Not the first of Liz Truss’ statements to be ‘misconstrued’ (Reuters) The former Tory leadership candidate, who has thrown her weight behind the foreign secretary, said: “It’s not that she rules out all future help. this is a misinterpretation of what he said. “What it’s looking at, though, is enabling people to keep more of the money they earn. “It doesn’t make sense to take money from people and then give it back in very, very complicated ways. “We need to simplify it and we need to make sure that households are as resilient as possible and stopping people getting huge amounts of tax is one way of doing that.” Ms Truss has promised an emergency budget in September if she is elected Tory leader by 160,000 Conservative Party members. But he has given no indication that this will include immediate help with fuel bills, instead focusing on the “immediate” delivery of tax cuts totaling around £30bn. It is understood he will seek to implement the reversal of Mr Sunak’s 1.25 per cent rise in national insurance within days, rather than waiting until April, as would normally be the practice. It also plans to scrap the rise in corporation tax from 19 to 25%, which the former chancellor planned for 2023, and suspend green levies on energy bills. “Despite the Bank of England’s tough assessment this week, I do not believe in our great country giving up on managing recession or accepting the inevitability of a recession,” Ms Truss said. “I would hit the ground running by bringing in an emergency budget, setting a steady course to grow our economy to help fund our public services and the NHS.” Rishi Sunak has pledged more cost of living despite facing criticism in the past for not doing enough as chancellor (PA wire) Anti-poverty think tank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warned that the tax cuts were “a really ineffective way of giving money to those who need it most”, because many of the poorest pay no tax. “Six out of seven pounds you would spend on scrapping the rise in national insurance would go to the top half of the income distribution,” the foundation’s Katie Schmuecker told The Independent. And Mr Sunak warned that premature tax cuts risked driving inflation even higher. “Putting £40 billion of extra borrowed money into an economy that is seeing an inflationary spiral risks making it worse,” he said. “That might be fine, but I think it means gambling with people’s savings, their pensions, their mortgage rates. It’s not a gamble I’m ready to take.” The former chancellor said the public deserved “clear-eyed realism, not starry-eyed reinforcement” on the issue. Tory MP Damian Hinds admitted the support package put together by Mr Sunack as chancellor was not enough in these “extremely difficult times” and suggested more would come if he became prime minister. Mr Hinds, a supporter of Sunak, said: “Things have even gotten worse since it came in when it comes to predicting what energy bills will be in the future. “He’s been clear that more may be needed and he’s prepared to do it as needed.”
