Prime minister Liz Truss has used her keynote speech at the Tory Party Conference to emphasise that “everyone will benefit” from her growth-pursuing economic policies and the UK must “stay the course”.
She insisted before attendees that the short-term “disruption” in the markets would be worth suffering through in pursuit of longer-term prosperity.
The PM said: “Whenever there is change, there is disruption.
“Not everyone will be in favour. But everyone will benefit from the result: a growing economy and a better future.”
She said that the UK was currently going through “stormy days” but the nation had to “stay the course” and her government was determined to “get Britain moving”.
Truss’ speech – which was briefly interrupted by fracking protesters - also came as a call for unity within the party, with the Birmingham conference having been marred by infighting over the new government’s new suite of policies.
The government’s recent mini-Budget was greeted by a fierce reaction from the markets and the ensuing public outcry has seen the Conservatives fall significantly behind Labour in the polls and unsettled many Tory MPs.
The government responded by U-turning on unpopular plans to scrap the 45 pence tax rate for the highest earners, a move which Truss talked up at the time as being indicative of a “listening government” that was conscious of voters’ concerns.
While some Tories welcomed the move, home secretary Suella Braverman was a backer of the policy and hit out at some of her party colleagues for launching a “coup” to overturn it.
Elsewhere, other senior Tories have publicly suggested that the government should raise benefits in line with inflation, with ministers yet to make a final decision on the issue.
Commons leader Penny Mordaunt said that it “makes sense” to hike Universal Credit in tandem with inflation because of the cost-of-living squeeze, while former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and ex-cabinet minister Michael Gove also advocate such a move.
While a decision is yet to be made, foreign secretary James Cleverly had told the BBC ahead of the speech that it was positive “to feed ideas directly into the centre” of government when asked about Mordaunt’s comments.
Shedding light on the “disruption” that Truss refers to in her speech, Cleverly suggested that it was almost “inevitable” that interest rates would rise further and that this would form part of what the PM was hinting at.
He added: “What we need to do is make sure we find a way of offsetting that by having a growing economy, growing wages.”
Elsewhere in her speech, Truss also criticised the level of focus on the redistribution of wealth, rather than creating more of it to share around through a bigger, thriving economy.
She said: “We need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.
“That is why I am determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low-growth cycle.
“We have huge talent across the country. We're not making enough of it.”
Photo by Simon Dawson / No10 Downing Street - Information Rights Unit, on Wikimedia Commons
