PMQs: Truss savage Starmer 'can't put a sticking plaster'
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Ms Truss insisted that she will immediately lower taxes to help households and businesses with soaring energy bills. And she mocked Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s calls for a bigger windfall tax on companies, as she slammed him for backing the “same old tax and spend” policies.
The new PM said: “I will make sure that in our energy plan we will help to support businesses and people with the immediate price crisis, as well as making sure there are long-term supplies available.”
Mr Starmer claimed Ms Truss was seeking to protect the profits of Shell and give Amazon a tax break rather than helping families and public services.
He added in the Commons: “The Prime Minister claims to be breaking orthodoxy, but the reality is she’s reheating George Osborne’s failed corporation tax plans – protecting oil and gas profits and forcing working people to pay the bill.
“She’s the fourth Tory Prime Minister in six years. The face at the top may change but the story remains the same. There’s nothing new about the Tory fantasy of trickle-down economics. Nothing new about this Tory Prime Minister who nodded through every decision that got us into this mess and now says how terrible it is.
“And can’t she see there’s nothing new about a Tory Prime Minister who, when asked who pays, says, ‘It’s you, the working people of Britain.’”
To cheers, Ms Truss hit back by saying: “There’s nothing new about a Labour leader who is calling for more tax rises. It’s the same old tax and spend. What I’m about is reducing taxes, getting our economy growing, getting investment, getting new jobs for people right across the country.
“I’m afraid [Mr Starmer] doesn’t understand aspiration, he doesn’t understand opportunity, he doesn’t understand people want to keep more of their own money, and that is what I will deliver as Prime Minister.” Ms Truss was welcomed to a packed PMQs with hearty cheers from the Tory backbenches.
Sitting between Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey and Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, the new PM quickly got to work dissecting Mr Starmer’s questions.
After offering token congratulations to Ms Truss in the House, the Labour leader asked: “When she said in her leadership campaign that she was against windfall taxes, did she mean it?” In a swift rebuke, Ms Truss said: “I am against a windfall tax. I believe it is the wrong thing to be putting companies off investing in the United Kingdom just when we need to be growing the economy.”
Ms Truss said she understood people were “struggling with the cost of living”. She added: “That is why I as Prime Minister will take immediate action to help people with the cost of their energy bills and I will be making an announcement to this House on that tomorrow.”
The premier added she would reform the UK’s overall energy mix by building more nuclear power stations and exploring more fossil fuel supplies in the North Sea.
She added: “The reality is this country will not be able to tax its way to growth. The way we will grow our economy is by attracting investment, keeping taxes low, delivering reforms to build projects quicker.”
PMQs: Theresa May congratulates Liz Truss
COMMENT BY LEO McKINSTRY
Liz Truss’s debut at Prime Minister’s Questions could have been an ordeal, given both her reputation as an awkward speaker and the backdrop of the energy crisis.
Yet she managed to pull off an unlikely triumph which had her own side exhilarated and Labour sullen.
Self-confident, crisp and fluent, she exuded a sense of determined purpose about her plans to revive Britain, while she avoided the theatrical approach that had characterised the Johnson years.
In the process, she crushed Labour’s hopes of an easy victory. Indeed, Sir Keir Starmer, more wooden than ever, was the undisputed loser from their exchanges.
When he complained that there was “nothing new” about Ms Truss’s leadership, since the “same old Tories” were still the party that protected corporate wealth, she shot back with perfect timing, saying there’s nothing new about a Labour leader who is calling for tax rises.
Mr Starmer will have to improve his performance dramatically if he is to start gaining the upper hand in future bouts. If he fails, there will be renewed internal agitation about his own leadership.
In contrast, Truss’s win will have reassured her party that the right choice was made in the leadership contest. During that race, she proved a remarkably quick learner as she transformed her debating style, becoming less defensive and more punchy.
This week, she has made striking progress, and her appearance at the dispatch box yesterday was far better than the uninspiring speech she made in Downing Street on Tuesday.
It must be said, though, that the format of Prime Minister’s Questions suits her, since she is much more relaxed when she speaks off-the-cuff rather than from a prepared script.
Harold Macmillan used to become so anxious before PMQs that he would often be physically sick. Harold Wilson could only get through it with the help of several large brandies.
But Ms Truss betrayed few nerves yesterday as she took command of the chamber. She even appeared to be enjoying herself, especially when she cracked a joke after Theresa May pointed out that all three female Prime Ministers have been Conservatives.
Never mind female, she quipped, Labour can’t even find a leader “who doesn’t come from north London”.
Ms Truss had said on Tuesday that she was “elected as a Conservative, and will govern as a Conservative”.
That firm conviction was also clear at PMQs. She showed no embarrassment about articulating the traditional Tory vision of low taxes and a limited state as the best means to generate economic growth. Her Government, she pledged, would always aim to cut taxes because, “I’m on the side of people who work hard and do the right thing”.
It was a resounding statement of timeless Conservative values, one that Mrs Thatcher would have applauded.
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