Grant Shapps
(Picture: PA Archive)Tory rebel Grant Shapps insisted on Monday that he did not want Liz Truss to be toppled as Prime Minister after the humiliating U-turn over the top rate of tax.
Mr Shapps, who was sacked by Ms Truss as transport secretary after she took office last month, joined forces with another ex-minister, Michael Gove, on Sunday to say they wouldn’t be able to support the Government on the highly contentious measure.
Their intervention triggered other Tory MPs, including Steve Double and Maria Caulfield, to row in behind them, suggesting Ms Truss and her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, were facing a major backbench revolt.
Welcoming Mr Kwarteng’s reversal this on Monday morning, Mr Shapps said the plan to remove the 45p tax rate for the country’s highest earners was a policy that “jarred”. Asked how damaged the Prime Minister was, he replied on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I want the Prime Minister to survive. I want the Conservatives to win the next election.
“I think the Prime Minister herself has acknowledged that this was rushed into, that the communications behind it were nowhere near good enough. There was a belief, if you like, that as long as the policy worked out, to hell with everything else. That is not the real world.”
While the decision has raised serious questions over the PM’s judgment, the U-turn appeared to have averted the threat of a major rebellion for now. Commons Treasury committee chairman Mel Stride said the decision showed “pragmatism” but called on Mr Kwarteng to now bring forward the publication of the assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) of his mini-Budget.
The Government’s failure to publish the OBR’s analysis and details of how it would pay for £45 billion of tax cuts has been blamed for spooking financial markets. Mr Stride tweeted: “Reversal on 45p rate welcome. Fairer but also shows pragmatism by a Government that has to date felt far too doctrinaire. Further big change needed is to bring forward OBR forecast so markets can be reassured at earliest opportunity. Would take pressure off interest rate rises.”
Tobias Ellwood, Conservative chairman of Parliament’s defence committee, tweeted: “Abolition of the 45p tax rate: Good call. Thank you for listening.”
Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt told the Standard “it was probably for the best” and that the decision would allow the Government to move on. There was a fear that the row over the top tax rate was set to overshadow Ms Truss’s first party conference since becoming PM and Tory leader on September 5.
However, Lord Barwell, former chief of staff in Theresa May’s No10 administration, said that the 45p rate was not the only concern in the growth plan. He added: “It is still a large package of unfunded tax cuts that will increase borrowing and force the Bank to sharply increase interest rates.”
