Liz Truss has fuelled fresh questions about how she'll fund her pledges after vowing to divert billions from the NHS into social care.
The Tory leadership frontrunner has vowed to reverse a £12bn-a-year National Insurance rise, which her rival Rishi Suank announced to support the NHS and care sector as they recover from the Covid crisis.
But she told a hustings event in Birmingham tonight that she would keep spending the money - while refusing to say where she would get it from.
More crucially, she said the money would go to care homes - despite only £5.3bn of the first £36bn being earmarked for them.
It was unclear tonight if she would announce more money to clear NHS backlogs, which were set to swallow up £30bn of the funds.
She re-iterated her attack on NHS management, saying she would address "the number of layers in the organisation".
The Foreign Secretary, who has repeatedly claimed the National Insurance rise is not necessary - despite being part of the government that approved it - said: "I still would spend the money, I would just take it out of general taxation rather than raising National Insurance.
"But I would spend that money in social care. The fact is quite a lot of it has gone into the NHS.
"I believe it should go to local authorities to deal with the very real issues in social care.
"Because the problem we've got at the moment is there are people in beds in the NHS who'd be better off in social care beds."
She claimed NHS workers on the frontline feel "disempowered", and attacked layers of management in the NHS.
"We've put extra money in, this extra £13 billion, but what people who work in the NHS tell me is the problem is the number of layers in the organisation they go through to get things done, and the lack of local decision making.
"That's what people are telling me is the problem, rather than a lack of funding."
She claimed to have opposed the National Insurance rise "internally", stating: "It was wrong to raise National Insurance... we didn't need to do it."
Meanwhile Ms Truss declined to say she'd "fully protect" people from rising bill.
Her rival Rishi Sunak re-iterated to the Tory faithful that her "unfunded" tax cuts would make little difference to those on benefits and none at all to pensioners - describing them as a "moral failure".
In a dig at the frontrunner, who has spoken gushingly of her admiration for Margaret Thatcher, Mr Sunak said: "All these people who understand Margaret Thatcher's economics (referring to her former Chancellor Nigel Lawson and Tory grandee Norman Lamont) are supportive of my economic plan."
He added: “Millions of people are going to face the risk of destitution this winter, literally millions. And if we don’t do anything to avert that I think it would be a moral failure of the Conservative government.”
The blue-on-blue griping over the economy shows no sign of abating as the leadership contest goes into its final days.
Ms Truss again slammed cash payments to families as "Gordon Brown economics", and complained people must “avoid talking ourselves into a recession”.
While not ruling out extra help, she said her "first priority" is cutting taxes - and her second is boosting energy supply.
She admitted "in any fiscal event a Chancellor has to look at people on fixed incomes" - but did not spell out how she might help.
The leadership favourite continued to reiterate her controversial tax cuts will fuel growth, again declining to outline her strategy in detail.
Asked if she could promise hard-up Brits, including pensioners and those on benefits that she would provide vital support, she told host John Pienaar: "We're not going to sit here and write the budget."
She again stated: "I don't believe in taking money in taxes before giving it back as benefits."
Ms Truss said: "I'm a Conservative, I believe in low taxes, I believe in companies succeeding, I believe in companies making profits so that they're able to hire more workers, that's what I believe and that's the platform I'm standing on."
