faced with the crisis, Liz Truss refuses to tax energy companies
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The Prime Minister, who does not want to puncture businesses, highlighted the dangers of taxation “at the same level as France”.
Faced with the scale of the cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom, the new Prime Minister Liz Truss promised to announce measures on Thursday but ruled out taxing energy companies to finance them, during her first duel with the leader of the opposition.
The day after taking office in Downing Street, she assured MPs on Wednesday that she intended to face the “challenges” from the United Kingdom “at a vital time“. She said she would be back the next day with a plan to tackle soaring energy bills that are crushing households with inflation already over double digits. Until then remained silent on the concrete nature of her projects, Liz Truss, who in the campaign said she preferred tax cuts to redistribution, could decide according to the press on a freeze on energy bills – supposed to increase by 80 % starting at October.
Read alsoUK: Liz Truss promises to ‘weather the storm’
Such a project could represent a massive cost approaching 200 billion euros. But the leader, during the first session of questions to the Prime Minister, hammered home her rejection of the exceptional tax on energy companies which Boris Johnson had resolved to help households.
“The money has to come from somewhere“, challenged the leader of the Labor Party Keir Starmer. “She is the fourth Tory Prime Minister in six years, the face may change but the story remains the same“, he lamented, accusing him of wanting to put the burden of his plan on public finances rather than draining corporate profits.
Avoid tax increases
“The truth is that this country will not find its way to growth through taxes (…) but by attracting investment, lowering taxes and acting faster“replied Liz Truss, rather comfortable in the exercise, highlighting the dangers of taxation”at the same level as France“.
“Deliver» («To act“), this is what Liz Truss, a fervent 47-year-old liberal who regularly claims to be Margaret Thatcher, has been repeating tirelessly for two months. On Tuesday during her first speech at 10 Downing Street, she assured that the country could “out of the storm“, a formula taken up on Wednesday in a number of British newspapers.
Read alsoBoris Johnson and Liz Truss, two sides of the same coin?
The bet is not won for the former head of diplomacy, especially since she must no longer convince only the base of the Conservative party which elected her this summer, but address all the British. She came to power with very low popularity, two years into the legislative elections in which the Labor Party came out on top. While the majority of Conservative MPs would have preferred her rival Rishi Sunak to become head of government, she will also have to somehow bring together a divided party after 12 years in power.
Multiplication of strikes
She must also face a social unrest unprecedented since the Thatcher years, strikes multiplying in recent weeks in many sectors to demand wage increases to match inflation.
Barely named head of government during an audience with Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland, Liz Truss on Tuesday declined her “top three priorities“:”grow the economy» and tackle «the energy crisis caused by the war of (Vladimir) Putinas well as the problems of the public health system.
As the dispute with Brussels over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status threatens to harden, Liz Truss also said on Wednesday “determined“to work with”all partiesto resolve the crisis, saying they prefer a “negotiated solutionbut warning that she would not accept the status quo, given the political deadlock in the province.
Read alsoLiz Truss facing the challenges of the British crisis
After campaigning on the very right, Liz Truss was surrounded in the House of Commons by her loyal supporters whom she appointed to her cabinet, starting with her Minister of Finance, Kwasi Kwarteng, hitherto in charge of Enterprises and Energy and a supporter like her of a State with little intervention and a market economy.
For the first time, the three main cabinet positions will be filled by elected representatives from diversity – but who have come through the classic private education of the British elite. Besides the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has maternal roots in Sierra Leone, and Home Secretary Suella Braverman is of Indian descent.
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