Liz Truss has pledged to boost UK growth rates with “full-fat freeports”, in the latest policy proposal to emerge in the Tory leadership campaign. The Foreign Secretary, who is currently tipped as the frontrunner to replace Boris Johnson, has promised to cut red-tape and boost investment as part of her bid to defeat rival Rishi Sunak.
The latest flagship policy from her campaign may also be seen as a bid to steal a march on Mr Sunak, who has been an advocate of free ports since his days as a backbench MP and has used the contest to style himself as the “common-sense Thatcherite” candidate. The plan from Ms Truss, seen as the candidate of the Tory right-wing and as the most popular with the grassroots, comes with fresh promises of reducing regulation and cutting Whitehall bureaucracy.
Pitched as the cornerstone of her tax-cutting economic vision, the Truss campaign said that the plans would see brownfield sites and other locations turned into “investment zones”, dubbed “full-fat freeports”.
