Rishi Sunak has told her rival and favorite in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, Liz Truss, that she cannot provide support for British families struggling this winter and sticks to her key policy of tax cuts.
How to deal with the subsistence crisis arising from rising energy and food bills has become a key point of difference in the two candidates’ campaigns to replace Boris Johnson. Sunak, the former finance minister, promises more direct aid and stresses the importance of having more money to the truce people.
The stakes in the debate will rise further this week when energy regulator Offgame announced what the new price range would be for a three-month period starting in October. Consulting firm Auxilione estimates the average bill to be around £3,600 ($4,292), up from today’s £1,971.
Truss’s ally and chancellor candidate in his administration Kwasi Quarteng wrote in the Mail on Sunday that “help is coming” for families, but declined to give specific policies. In an interview in the Sun on Sunday, Truss said he plans to rethink self-employed pay and try to limit disruptive attacks.
“The reality is that the truss cannot deliver a support package and deliver over £50bn in permanent, no-tax tax cuts,” a Sunak campaign spokesman said. “Doing so would mean raising debt to historic and dangerous levels, putting public finances at grave risk and plunging the economy into an inflationary spiral.”
Another policy discussed over the weekend, although not directly linked to any campaign, was a Treasury plan to ask British doctors to discount heating bills to vulnerable patients. The idea was quickly criticized by analysts and unions, with the British Medical Association calling it “unreliable”.
