Rishi Sunak made an appearance on Good Morning Britai n on Friday following his announcement of a new support package to ease the cost of living crisis. On Thursday, the Chancellor unveiled plans to give every household a £400 grant to help pay their soaring energy bills.
Sunak also announced that around eight million households on the lowest income bracket will receive a one-off cost of living payment of £650, with extra financial support also set to be given to pensioners and those with disabilities. This comes after Ofgem revealed the energy price cap will rise yet again with a further increase of another £800.
The Chancellor joined the ITV show live from Westminster after the £15bn emergency package was set out on Thursday and was grilled by hosts Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard as they questioned the chancellor's motives.
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Good Morning Britain viewers listened to Mr Sunak as he explained how the support plan will help households who are struggling with skyrocketing bills amid the cost of living crisis.
However Kate Garraway, 55, slammed the Chancellor's plan as a 'sticking plaster' as she asked how the support will be funded.
"It's a solid sticking plaster, my question is for someone who is always looking at investment and looking at how to pay for things down the line, what are you going to do to cost that and how are you going to get that investment in quickly from those companies?"
But the Chancellor hit back and insisted his package of measures is not a 'sticking plaster' and explained the Government is offering out 'incredibly significant support'.
"We have addressed the energy levy and as I said it is very different to the policy the labour party were proposing because our policy incentivises business investment and that is good for us," Rishi Sunak said.
"I don't think it is fair to describe it as a sticking plaster. The total support we have announced is £37billion to help British people with the cost of living challenges that they are facing.
"I don't think anyone can say that isn't incredibly significant support. It is right that it is targeted on the most vulnerable with them receiving up to £1,200 of support."
The presenter and Chancellor then proceeded to shout over one another whilst Kate then went on to question the timing of the support package, which was announced the day after Sue Gray's report was released.
"It is something that we have been working on for a while, as you can imagine these things take time to design and think through properly, and that's what we have been doing," Sunak said.
"In terms of the timing of the announcement I have said consistently from February and March onwards that I stood ready to do more to support people, but we wanted to wait until we had a bit more certainty and clarity about what would happen to energy bills in the autumn so that we could appropriately size the support that we were going to put in place."
Kate then proceeded to tell the Chancellor that it looked like it was a 'big moment to distract'.
"No it was absolutely not driven by that, energy prices in the autumn was the biggest driver. We just heard this week from Ofgem what their expectation for energy bills would be in the autumn."
