Liz Truss slammed giving "handouts" to struggling Brits amidst the deepening cost of living deepens as "Gordon Brown economics".
The Tory leadership frontrunner claimed crisis talks now to deal with the problem would be "bizarre" and a "kangaroo committee" - despite warnings annual energy bills will top £4,200 from January.
She repeatedly criticised Mr Brown, the former Prime Minister who made earnest pleas for Tories to come together and tackle the crisis before kids go hungry earlier this week.
She was last week accused of making her second U-turn of the contest over handouts, after her allies claimed she would not rule out giving support to millions of struggling Brits.
Tonight she appeared to make light of the idea of handouts, speaking at a Tory hustings event in Darlington.
Asked about what she would do to deal with rising fuel prices, Ms Truss told the audience: “We are facing great difficulties with energy.
"I understand people are struggling with their bills on fuel and food but the first thing we should do as Conservatives is help people have more of their own money.
“What I don’t support is taking money off people in tax and then giving it back to them in handouts. That to me is Gordon Brown economics.”
She added: “Frankly we had years of that under Labour and what we got was a slow-growth economy and we didn’t get the opportunities, we didn’t get the enterprise, we didn’t get the new jobs in places like Darlington, which is one of the reasons people voted Conservative.
“They voted Conservative because they want to see enterprise, they want to see new opportunities, and that is why it is so important that we don’t raise taxes, that we keep taxes low and also we abolish these EU rules that are holding back investment into our country.”
Rishi Sunak earlier said he thought it was “wrong” that Ms Truss “has ruled out direct support to families”.
Mr Sunak even claimed he would welcome sitting down with his rival, and the outgoing Prime Minister to thrash out an emergency package of support before bills soar again in October.
But Ms Truss snubbed the idea as "bizarre".
“We have a Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, we have a Prime Minister, who are in those jobs until September, and I think it would be constitutionally deeply undesirable to try and overrule them with a sort of made-up committee of the CBI, me and Rishi Sunak.”
She said the Prime Minister and Chancellor are “capable people, capable of making these decisions”.
The former Chancellor suggested he would not offer further cash payments to every household and would instead target support at the most vulnerable.
Speaking at a Tory leadership hustings in Darlington, Mr Sunak, asked if he is prepared to spend another £15.3 billion to help families with the rising cost of living, said: “I don’t think that will be necessary because what we are talking about now… is the extra increase on top of what we thought.
“And we already thought bills were going to go up to £3,000 when we announced that support.”
He added: “I want to go further than I did previously because the situation is worse. It’s right that we target that on the people who most need our help.”
Doubling down on her initial rejection of handouts, Ms Truss later said she “fundamentally” disagreed with “putting up taxes and then also giving out benefits” to help with the rising cost of living.
She said: “There’s a fixed pie, we have to share out the pie and we have to give out the money and hand out. My view is that we can grow the pie, and having lower taxes actually helps us generate more income into the economy so there is more money to go around."
