Joe Biden calls Liz Truss’s mini-Budget ‘a mistake’
Liz Truss is set to avoid MPs’ questions on the economic chaos caused by her mini-Budget, sending Penny Mordaunt to the House of Commons in her place.
Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle granted Sir Keir Starmer an urgent question directed at the PM, but Downing Street said that the Leader of Commons would reply to the Labour leader in her place.
Borrowing one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite put-downs, a Labour source described the prime minister as “frit” - meaning “frightened”.
It comes after Jeremy Hunt announced the government has scrapped most of the measures set out in the mini-Budget, including the planned cut to income tax.
In an emergency statement this morning, he said: “We will reverse almost all the tax measures announced in the growth plan three weeks ago that have not started parliamentary legislation.”
The chancellor also announced that Liz Truss’s s promise to support Britons by controlling the price of energy bills for two years will now only last until April.
He will address the Commons this afternoon at 3.30pm.