Sunak criticises rival plans for cost of living

Ms Truss was up first and was pushed on what help she could offer households facing eye-watering hikes to their energy bills. 

The Foreign Secretary told the party faithful: “What I have always said is that my first preference is always to reduce taxes.

“I do not like Gordon Brown-style economics where you take money off people in taxes and give it back in benefits.”

She added: “If the answer to every question is raising tax, we will choke off economic growth, and we will send ourselves to penury, and I think that’s a massive problem.”

Responding to the comments, Mr Sunak said the plans would not help those most in need.

"Scrapping the health and social care levy [the National Insure rise], as she wants to do, is worth £1,700 to her on her salary.

“For someone working really hard on the national living wage, it’s worth just over a quid a week. 

“And for someone who’s a pensioner, without any earnings, it’s worth zero.”

Mr Sunak said there needed to be more direct help for pensioners and people on low incomes. 

"But if we don’t do that… if you support a plan that Liz is suggesting, which says she doesn’t believe in doing that, doesn’t believe in providing direct financial support to those groups of people, now that’s what she said because she thinks her tax cut is going to help them, which it is not, we are going to, as a Conservative Government, leave millions of incredibly vulnerable people at the risk of real destitution.”

He later told the audience of Tory members: “Millions of pensioners this autumn and winter are going to have an extraordinarily tough time.

“They don’t have the ability to go out and work more hours. They’re already dipping into their savings in retirement.

“And as I said then and I’ll say it again, if we don’t provide direct support to millions of vulnerable pensioners, it will be a moral failure of this party and the country will never ever forgive us.”

Elsewhere during the debate, Ms Truss effectively signalled the end of Mr Sunak’s windfall tax on energy firms. 

She said: “I don’t think profit is a dirty word, and the fact it’s become a dirty word in our society is a massive problem.”

“Now, of course, the energy giants, if they’re in an oligopoly, should be held to account, and I would make sure they’re rigorously held to account. But the way we bandy the word around ‘profit’ as if it’s something that’s dirty and evil, we shouldn’t be doing that as Conservatives.”

Earlier in the day, the Treasury had suggested more action could be taken on the “extraordinary profits seen in certain parts of the electricity generation sector.”

Ms Truss described it as a “Labour idea.”

“It’s all about bashing business, and it sends the wrong message to international investors and to the public,” she said. 

During questioning, the former Chancellor was asked if he had spoken to Boris Johnson since resigning from government. 

Mr Sunak said: “I have messaged and called but unsurprisingly he hasn’t returned my calls.”

Ms Truss dismissed suggestions she might be modelling herself on Margaret Thatcher, insisting: “I’m a massive fan of Mrs Thatcher, but we live in different times.”

Meanwhile, the latest update to the House of Commons register of interests revealed more than £140,000 in donations for various Tory MP’s doomed leadership campaigns. 

The records show Suella Braverman’s unsuccessful campaign received £10,000 from First Corporate Consultants Ltd, a company owned by leading climate sceptic Terence Mordaunt.

The GWPF has lobbied against climate change policies such as net zero and was sanctioned by the Charity Commission in 2014 for breaching rules on “balance and neutrality”.

Tom Tugendhat declared the largest amount of donations of any leadership candidate, listing more than £120,000 in his register of interests.

Some £42,673 came from Policy Focus Ltd, a London-based company set up only 10 days before Boris Johnson’s resignation and owned by property developers Christian Sweeting and Robert Luck.

Mr Tugendhat also received £50,000 from long-standing Tory donor Ian Mukherjee and £25,000 from Beacon Rock Ltd, a company owned by former Conservative Party treasurer Sir Michael Davis.

He received a further £6,000 from business consultancy InvestUK Group, which has previously supported Mr Tugendhat’s work as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Kemi Badenoch raised £12,500 to support her bid for the Tory leadership, including £10,000 from Longrow Capital, owned by tech-focused investor Dave Maclean.

She also received £2,500 from Joanne Black, for whom no further details are available.

Ms Truss, Penny Mordaunt, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi are yet to declare any financial support for their campaigns.

Mr Sunak declared a loan of some office space in Westminster worth £3,195.

MPs have 28 days from accepting a donation to declare it to parliamentary standards authorities, with the latest publication covering the period up to August 8.

By Andrew Learmonth

LIZ Truss plans to help with the cost of living crisis are goin to “leave millions of incredibly vulnerable people at the risk of real destitution,” Rishi Sunak has warned.

The brutal comment from the former Chancellor came as the two leadership hopefuls clashed at a husting in Cheltenham. 

Ms Truss was up first and was pushed on what help she could offer those facing eye-watering energy bill hikes, the Foreign Secretary told the party faithful: “What we shouldn’t be doing is taking money off people in taxes and then giving it back to them in benefits.

“So the first thing we should be doing is lowering taxes.”

Ms Truss said: “What I have always said is that my first preference is always to reduce taxes.

“I do not like Gordon Brown-style economics where you take money off people in taxes and give it back in benefits.”

She added: “If the answer to every question is raising tax, we will choke off economic growth, and we will send ourselves to penury, and I think that’s a massive problem.”

Responding to the comments, Mr Sunak said: “No tax cut, and Liz’s tax plan, is not going to help those groups of people.

“So scrapping the health and social care levy [the National Insure rise], as she wants to do, is worth £1,700 to her on her salary.

“For someone working really hard on the national living wage, it’s worth just over a quid a week. 

“And for someone who’s a pensioner, without any earnings, it’s worth zero.

“Now I want to provide direct support to those groups of people.”

Mr Sunak said he would cut to VAT on energy bills, and provide “direct financial support to those groups of people”.

The former Chancellor was also asked if he spoken to Boris Johnson since resigning from government. 

Mr Sunak said: “I have messaged and called but unsurprisingly he hasn’t returned my calls.”

He warned that Liz Truss’s plan of favouring tax cuts instead of direct support could “leave millions of incredibly vulnerable people at the risk of real destitution”.

said this was “an energy supply problem”.

“We need to deal with the root cause,” she said. “We need to make sure we’re using our reserves in the North Sea and incentivising companies to do that.

“We need to make sure we’re fracking in parts of the country where there is local support for that taking place, and we need to get on with delivering the Small Modular nuclear reactors which we produce here in Derbyshire.”

as effectively pledged to kill off the windfall tax on energy firms, telling party members that it was wrong to treat profit as a “dirty word”.

Speaking at the hustings in Cheltenham, she said: “Now, of course, the energy giants, if they’re in an oligopoly, should be held to account, and I would make sure they’re rigorously held to account. 

“But the way we bandy the word around ‘profit’ as if it’s something that’s dirty and evil, we shouldn’t be doing that as Conservatives.”

The comments came after the Treasury suggested the levy on the “extraordinary profits seen in certain parts of the electricity generation sector” could continue.