Sunak accused of ‘screeching U-turn’ by Truss campaign after proposing cutting VAT on fuel bills – UK politics live | Politics

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a short briefing on Rishi Sunak’s proposal for a temporary cut in VAT on fuel bills. Sunak says he would cut scrap VAT on all domestic fuel bills for just one year. The IFS says this would cost about £4.3bn.

It says this policy would be “well targeted at those who face the biggest rise in their energy bills, but not at those – the poorest – who are least able to cope with the rise in costs”. It also says it would have a slight inflationary impact, because householders would have more money to spend on other items.

But the IFS’s main concern with the policy is that it would be hard to reverse, and that, if the cut did become permanent, that would be a mistake. It says:

If it were genuinely temporary, the fiscal and environmental costs of the policy would be bearable. The biggest risk with the policy is that it would prove politically difficult to restore VAT on energy bills at the end of the 12 months. As a permanent policy, removing VAT on energy bills would be a move in exactly the wrong direction: distorting households’ choices towards more energy use, making it harder to meet the UK’s ‘net zero’ targets and meaning that any reduction in emissions happened in a way that was more costly overall to households than it need be.

Liz Truss has said that if she becomes prime minister she will create a new offence of street harassment to protect women.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, favoured the creation of a new offence in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard, which triggered a national debate about violence against women, but the plan was reportedly blocked by Boris Johnson.

In a BBC podcast in May, Nimco Ali, who is a very close friend of Johnson’s wife, Carrie, and who was appointed as the UK government’s independent adviser on tackling violence against women and girls, all but confirmed that it was Johnson who vetoed the plan. Johnson has argued that harassment can be tackled through existing legislation.

As well as announcing her plan for a new offence to criminalise street harassment, Truss said she would introduce a national domestic abuse register, covering all forms of domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, and financial abuse.

And she said there would be compulsory training for police officers in handling domestic abuse crimes. She said:

Over the last two years, our nation has been shocked by a number of high-profile murders of women, many here in London. It is the responsibility of all political leaders, including us in Westminster and the mayor of London, to do more.

Violence against women and girls doesn’t have to be inevitable. Women should be able to walk the streets without fear of harm and perpetrators must expect to be punished.

Through increased police training, new offences, faster processes for rape victims and our domestic abuse register, we will ensure victims are protected, and crimes are prevented in the first place.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary and a leading supporter of Liz Truss for the Tory leadership, has said Rishi Sunak’s proposal to cut VAT on fuel bills suggests he is “under a lot of pressure”. He told Times Radio:

I think [Sunak is] under a lot of pressure. That’s why we see all these statements: he was the person who said the VAT cut would disproportionately benefit rich families and now he’s saying that a VAT cut on energy bills is the right thing.

He was saying that tax cuts were a fairytale; now he is proposing an unfunded tax cut.

There comes a time in campaigns when people are under a lot of pressure, he clearly felt under a lot of pressure in the [BBC] debate and he wanted to get out on the front foot and interrupt Liz.

I think that was the wrong look for him, I think that was the wrong action, but I can understand why he did that.

Asked whether Sunak could win a general election, Kwarteng told LBC radio:

He has flip-flopped and U-turned on this tax issue, which I find somewhat concerning, but he is a capable politician and a very likeable chap.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has challenged Keir Starmer to sack Sam Tarry, a shadow transport minister, for joining an RMT picket line this morning. Before the last rail strike, Starmer told his frontbenchers they should not join picket lines, although two frontbenchers and three ministerial aides who defied the order were not reprimanded.

Tarry has been giving interviews this morning defending the rail workers, and his right to support them.

But Shapps implied that if Starmer did not sack Tarry, it would be a sign of weakness. He told Sky News:

It’s clearly in direct defiance of Sir Keir Starmer who told his frontbench that they shouldn’t be [on picket lines]. No doubt he’ll want to remove him from his job.

Tarry is already in dispute with Labour HQ over its decision to allow a trigger ballot to go ahead. That means all members in his local party will vote on whether he will remain their candidate at the next election.

Good morning. This is the third Tory leadership contest in six years taking place while the party is in government, but in 2016 and 2019 the elections were both dominated by the single issue of Brexit. This is not the case this time, and one consequence of that is that Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – the two candidates still in the race – are having, or choosing, to say a lot more about policy in a range of areas.

And they are at it again this morning, with both making announcements.

• Truss, who is now seen as the clear frontrunner in the contest, has promised a return to national crime targets, pledging a 20% reduction in murders, other violence and burglaries within two years. My colleagues Peter Walker and Vikram Dodd have the details here.

In response, the Sunak campaign described this as “a lightweight plan based on publishing data the government already does and a power grab away from police and crime commissioners, including many excellent Conservative PCCs driving down crime in their area”.

• Sunak has promised to scrap VAT on household fuel bills next year, saving the average household £160. As chancellor he resisted calls to cut VAT on fuel, arguing that this would disproprotionately help wealthy families paying to heat large homes, but he says he favours the move now because the energy price cap is expected to rise above £3,000 in October. The proposal is part of what Sunak calls his “winter plan”, and my colleague Heather Stewart has the details.

The Truss campaign has described this as a “screeching U-turn”. A Truss campaign source told the Telegraph:

It’s good that Rishi has finally woken up and decided to offer something to people struggling with the rising cost of living. However, this feels like a screeching U-turn from someone who has spent the last few weeks of the leadership campaign branding everyone else’s tax cuts immoral and fairytales.

Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury and a leading Truss supporter, has made much the same point on Twitter.

Perhaps what is most interesting about the Sunak announcement is what it says about how Sunak thinks his campaign is faring.

As chancellor he always said he was willing to do more to help people with heating bills in the winter. But his last pacakge of measures was largely focused on measures targeted at low-income households; a VAT cut would help everyone, including richer people who need the money much less, which was why Sunak used to argue it was a bad idea. But many of the people voting in the Conservative leadership contest are in this category.

So Sunak is retreating from the preference for targeted intervention that he championed as chancellor. He also risks undermining his main argument against Truss, which is that she has been promising unfunded tax cuts. That is the sort of move you might expect from a campaign in trouble (which is what the polling suggests) calculating that it needs to do something drastic to regain the initiative.

There is not much in the political diary for the day, but campaigning never stops, so we will find something to blog about.

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