Penny Mordaunt on Wednesday laid out her Tory leadership campaign by outlining her small-state, low-tax vision for Britain.
She is one of the frontrunners as MPs begin the process of voting to select the final two candidates to be the next prime minister, having racked up the second-highest number of endorsements after Rishi Sunak.
She told supporters that a government led by her would focus on the “four Is: investment, infrastructure, incentives and innovation”.
“Recently I think our party has lost our sense of self,” she said as she called for a return to the Tory “hit” policies of “low tax, small state, personal responsibility”.
“We want to get back to that,” she said.
The International Trade minister was an ardent Brexiteer who first rose to prominence in 2016 as a face of the Vote Leave campaign.
In recent days she has been dedicating her time to one-on-one meetings with MPs rather than media appearances in a bid to quietly shore up support from Tory colleagues.
She has already exceeded the 30 declared backers needed to move on to the next round of the leadership contest later today.
It comes as Jeremy Hunt, backed by Ms Mordaunt in the last Tory leadership contest, argued that the NHS and social care crisis was being “ignored” while candidates argued about Brexit.
He told the Standard: “With ambulance response times the worst on record, all candidates urgently need to address the workforce crisis in the NHS.
“I am committing to a huge increase in doctor and nurse training places, and an overhaul in the way we plan our future NHS workforce to make it independent of government.
“I also urge all candidates to set out their vision for the future of health and social care: our NHS is too important to be left out of this contest.”
Tom Tugendhat on Wednesday defended his stance as a Remain voter.
“I have been supported by Anne-Marie Trevelyan who has led the vote leave campaign,” he said.
“I have more members of the so-called Red Wall seats supporting me and I have got Jake Berry who is working with me hand-in-glove to make sure we deliver a much better policy for the whole of the country.”
Sir Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Commons Liaison Committee, on Wednesday declared his support for Suella Braverman, saying she was one of the “bravest and most principled people” he had ever met and “she voted to get Brexit done”.
