Sunak accuses Truss of major U-turn after she says she will do all I can to help struggling households with fuel bills UK politics live | Politics

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Sunak accuses Truss of ‘major U-turn on biggest issue facing country’

The Rishi Sunak campaign is now formally accusing Liz Truss of doing a U-turn following her concession that she is considering offering people payments to help them with energy costs. (See 10.11am, 11.40am and 3.45pm). Last week she ruled out giving people handouts. A spokesperson for the Sunak campaign said:

This is a major U-turn on the biggest issue currently facing the country.

Its all very well offering empty words about doing all you can. But there aren’t lots of different ways to act on this. Taking action means providing direct support, which Truss had previously dismissed as handouts.

Twice now, Truss has made a serious moral and political misjudgment on a policy affecting millions of people, after last week reversing plans to cut the pay of teachers and the armed forces outside London. Mistakes like this in government would cost the Conservative party the next general election.

Updated at 17.06BST

Key events

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Key events (16)Liz Truss (40)Rishi Sunak (29)Nick Robinson (5)Alastair Stewart (4)Boris Johnson (4)

On accusations that he is a gloomster, Sunak responds: Nick, we started this program, you put a graphic up there that talked about energy bills going up to almost 4000.

No amount of boosterism language is going to help Graham figure out how to get through the winter.

What we need is someone who actually understands whats going on, has got a clear sense of how to manage our economy through what is going to be a challenging time.

Focus on getting the help to people like Graham that weve talked about and then bring this country to a place where it can look forward to a much brighter future.

Thats what I can do and no amount of starry-eyed boosterism is going to solve

any of the emergencies that we just talked about.

On his position as the underdog with three weeks to go, Sunak says: I knew what I was doing when I got into this and I was going to tell people what I think they needed to hear, not necessarily what they wanted to hear.

As I said, I would rather lose having fought for the things that I passionately believe are right for our country and being true to my values ​​than winning on a false promise.

On criticism that he resigned by tweet after thinking about it for months, Sunak replies: No actually resigning is a difficult thing to do, and I did it because it came to a point where enough was enough for me.

I had a big difference of opinion on how to manage the economy,

its not possible for a chancellor and prime minister not to be on the same page as that, and youre seeing that in this leadership contest, because there are two very different approaches to how I think we should do it.

On whether he told Boris Johnson he was no longer fit to be PM, Sunak said: No. I just resigned, Nick, it was clear he was not going to go, hed made that crystal clear.

He added: Well Ive had many conversations with the prime minister over the time that Ive been in office with him, Im sure, I know we talked about lots of things, right, and Im not going to sit here and talk to you about private conversations I have, that wouldn’t be right

Updated at 19.34BST

On a perceived lack of experience for the job as PM and the ability to look at a dictator in the eye, Sunak said: Yes, because throughout my career, in politics and before, Ive been willing to stand up for things that I believe in and fight for them.

You talked about Brexit, a lot of pressure was put on me not to support that, and I did. When it came to locking down the country last December with omicron, thats what lots of people wanted to do, I stood up against the system and I said no.

When it comes to wanting to reform the NHS, Im prepared to have some difficult conversations; so yes, being tough and making sure that I focus on the things that matter is core to who I am and as chancellor I designed a very stringent packet of economic sanctions to do exactly that with Putin.

Updated at 19.35BST

On Ukraine, Sunak says the defense secretary deserves credit for being one of the first to make sure that we provide arms to Ukraine.

I will continue with that policy, continually strengthening Ukraine, and continuing to weaken Russia. I did that as chancellor, I put in place a set of economic sanctions, together with my colleagues from around the world, that are tightening the grip on Putins war machine and I would want to do more of that as prime minister, and actually when it comes to energy, one of the things I was working on as chancellor, was a different way of doing the sanctions on Russia to see if we could find a way to do it, which would actually mean that we dont have such high energy bills and could cut off the supply of money to them, and Id like to find a way to make that work as PM.

Updated at 19.35BST

On the long queues at Dover last month, Sunak says on the French side appropriate staff need to be in place, which did not appear to be the case then.

Updated at 19.35BST

On the previous Tory promise of bringing net migration down to tens of thousands, Sunak dodges the question and says the most pressing problem is illegal immigrants coming across the Channel.

On climate change and the target of the UK reaching net zero by 2050, Sunak says he believes in the target and wants to focus on innovation and how we power our homes.

On his previous comments that the NHS was swallowing up cash, Sunak says the NHS needs to use the resources it has and reform.

And he wants to tackle missed appointments by having people cancel them in advance.

Updated at 19.36BST

On NHS funding, the former chancellor says from this point on it is about getting reform and efficiency out of it having previously given an injection of funding to help with the pandemic.

Sunak says he stands by the video footage of him saying he had diverted funds away from deprived urban areas.

He says he stands by the comments and government support is required in small towns and rural areas too.

In response to Martin Lewiss comments that rising energy bills is a crisis on the scale of the Covid pandemic, Sunak says his package of support at the time was praised by Lewis and independent commentators for being well targeted and helped the poorest.

Sunak keeps on the line that the tax cuts proposed by Truss benefit very large companies and not pensioners.

Sunak says his approach differs from Liz Trusss approach which is billions of extra borrowing each year.

For those on the lowest incomes, Sunak said he has proposed extra top-up payments.

For pensioners, he pledges an extra payment in the winter, which he estimates will be a few billion pounds.

Sunak reiterates that he will reduce VAT on energy bills this autumn, which Nick Robinson says will be 150 on average.

Updated at 19.11BST

Sunak does not give the specifics of the help he will offer, adding the situation is about 400 worse than when the package of support was announced.

Updated at 19.07BST

Sunak told the BBC there was a moral responsibility to get extra help to people with energy bills this winter.

He said: I do feel a moral responsibility as prime minister to go further and get extra help to people over the autumn and the winter to help them cope with what is going to be a really difficult time.

I think that is the right priority.

Sunak said he will go further in his help for families as the situation is worse than when he announced the package of support.

Updated at 19.07BST

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