Despite the worsening cost of living crunch, there have still not been any detailed meetings between UK Treasury officials and the camp of Tory leadership race favorite Liz Truss, about how to solve the problem of rocketing costs, daily newspaper the i reported.
Both ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak and his rival, Foreign Secretary Truss, face pressure to offer more clarity regarding their plans of helping struggling households and businesses. Voters have been left in the dark about what support they might be able to expect once one of the candidates finally enters 10 Downing Street as the next Prime Minister, sources are cited as saying.
The results of the Tory leadership contest will not be announced until 5 September, after the ballots of the UK Conservative party’s approximately 160,000 members are counted.
Campaigners for the odds-on favorite have claimed that Truss is not able, or prepared, to make any concrete announcements until “she has been able to look at all the information and data available” from the Treasury.
Outgoing PM Boris Johnson, who on 7 July announced his resignation from a premiership mired in controversy and scandal, authorized the Cabinet Secretary to hold discussions with Truss and Sunak to “support them in preparations to form an administration”.
However, such meetings have failed to take place and the opposition has ridiculed the “zombie government” which is failing to take a grip on many of the problems facing the country.
Truss cancelled a scheduled interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, meant to take place on Tuesday, where voters were expecting her to be grilled on her support package.
Officials at HM Treasury - the government's economic and finance ministry - have reportedly been working on various options they will present to the new PM.
But despite the urgency of tackling a whole host of problems, these options will only be presented after either Sunak or Truss takes office next week.
‘Dither & Delay’
The opposition Labour party has been urging that the two rivals in the Tory leadership race meet with Treasury officials in the coming days.
“Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak should be setting out the details of their plans now to reassure the public, but if they won’t do that, they should at least being doing it with Treasury officials to get ready for 5 September,” a Labour party source was cited as saying.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves accused Truss - who looks set to be the Conservative Party's third female leader after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May - and Sunak of “hiding from scrutiny” and urged them to “set out the details of their plans now to reassure the public”.
“It’s not good enough to wait. Candidates must stop the dither and delay and bring forward a serious package of measures,” Reeves said.
According to the Liberal Democrats, the government “doesn’t care and just doesn’t get it”.
“By now any decent government would have acknowledged the problem, recalled Parliament and passed urgent laws to help millions of families and pensioners who are in a catastrophe caused by this failure of leadership,” Wendy Chamberlain, Liberal Democrat Chief Whip and work and pensions spokeswoman said.
However, the camps of both Truss and Sunak have confirmed they have not had detailed meetings about policy decisions on the cost of living crisis further than standard “access talks” typical for a handover procedure.
“Access meetings with the Cabinet Secretary have been offered to provide limited briefings to help prepare for forming an administration. But addressing the cost of living crisis will rightly require the full support and advice that is only available to the government of the day,” a Truss campaign source said.
Truss’ allies have insisted that both she and her team were making every effort to ensure that “they are able to hit the ground running if she is elected Prime Minister”.
The two leadership contenders have been using the summer wooing Tory party members with their plans on taxes and spending.
The Foreign Secretary outlined £30Bln of tax cuts, including scrapping the proposed rise in corporation tax and reversing the government's National Insurance hike.
Truss is also seeking to scrap what is known as the "green levy". This is the part of a household’s energy bill that pays for social and green projects. Truss has been saying she favors tax cuts to put more money back into people's pockets, and has not ruled out direct support to vulnerable households. She has also promised an "emergency budget" to push through her tax cuts and insisted that when she is PM she would "consider the latest data" before making any decisions.
Sunak’s pitch has been to hold off on large tax cuts until soaring inflation, predicted by the Bank of England to peak this winter at 13.1 percent, is under control.
Sunak has promised to scrap the 5 percent VAT rate on household energy bills for a year if the price cap is raised by the energy regulator above £3,000 in autumn.
Ofgem announced that the energy price cap would increase by 80 percent from October. The decision will take the average gas and electricity bill from £1,971 to £3,549 a year.