The Prime Minister has addressed an influential group of Conservative Party MPs at a meeting tonight (Wednesday). Liz Truss was greeted with the customary banging of desks when she arrived to address the backbench 1922 Committee at Westminster.
Ms Truss told the meeting that small businesses would have faced “devastation” if the Government had not acted to cap energy prices, aides said. Following the meeting, few MPs wanted to speak to waiting journalists, with one saying simply “the Prime Minister spoke to us”, while another said only “it happened”.
It is the first time the PM has addressed the group of backbench Tory MPs since the mini-Budget. The meeting was chaired by executive member William Wragg as Sir Graham Brady was not in attendance.
Among those attending were some prominent critics of the Prime Minister’s strategy, including former cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Grant Shapps. The Whitehall editor of the Financial Times Sebastian Payne tweeted that one MP told him: "The mood was honestly funereal, horrendous. I was shocked at how brutal it was".
It is the first time the PM has addressed the group of backbench Tory MPs since the mini-Budget. The meeting was chaired by executive member William Wragg as Sir Graham Brady is not in attendance.
Meanwhile, Ms Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng should consider reversing some of their tax-cutting promises according to a Tory ex-cabinet minister. Damian Green, a former deputy prime minister, was asked how the Government can reduce debt while sticking to its mini-budget and ruling out public spending cuts.
He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “There are various things you could do and one of the obvious ways – because you do need some big numbers to change – one of the obvious ways would be possibly to defer some of the tax cuts or the failure to put taxes up.”
He went on to say: “I don’t think it involves scrapping the whole idea of deregulation and tax cuts. It needs fitting into an appropriate fiscal framework, and if you like an appropriate political framework as well.
“So I’m not saying actually do a 180-degree turn and go off in the other direction. It’s a question of making the policies appropriate for the times.”
