Cutting Taxes ‘Right Thing to Do Morally and Economically’: UK Prime Minister

Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers her keynote speech at the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, on Oct. 5, 2022. (Jacob King/PA Media)

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has defended her tax-cutting plan as “morally and economically” right but sought to allay concerns over rising government borrowing by pledging to be “fiscally responsible.”

Addressing the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Wednesday, Truss promised to steer the country through the “tempest” and “get Britain moving.”

It comes after her government’s plan to fund massive tax cuts with government borrowing rattled investors and led to turmoil in the financial markets.

In an attempt to spur growth, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled the biggest package of tax cuts in half a century on Sept. 23. However, it sparked panic among investors concerned about increased government borrowing, causing the pound to fall and borrowing costs to soar.

‘Growth, Growth, and Growth’

Despite having been forced to ditch plans to scrap the 45 percent top rate of tax, Truss told the conference that the government “must stay the course” in pursuit of her top priority—“Growth, growth, and growth.”

She said she is “ready to make hard choices,” because “we have no alternative if we want to get our economy growing again.”

The prime minister stressed: “Cutting taxes is the right thing to do morally and economically. Morally, because the state does not spend its own money. It spends the people’s. Economically, because if people keep more of their own money, they are inspired to do more of what they do best.”

A low tax economy is a sign that “Britain is open for business,” she said.

But in an attempt to calm markets, Truss promised to “keep an iron grip on the nation’s finances.”

“I believe in sound money and the lean state,” she said, adding that her government “will always be fiscally responsible.”

‘Anti-Growth Coalition’

The speech was briefly disrupted by Greenpeace protesters holding a flag that read “who voted for this?” before they were ejected from the conference hall.

Later in her speech, Truss listed climate activists as “enemies of enterprise” as part of an “anti-growth coalition,” which also includes opposition parties, trade unions, and “Brexit-deniers.”

“I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back,” she said. “The fact is they prefer protesting to doing. They prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions.”

The “coalition” always peddles “the same old answers,” she said. “It’s always more taxes, more regulation, and more meddling.”

The main opposition Labour Party rejected Truss’s characterisation.

Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Liz Truss has been a government minister for the last 10 years. She has been at the heart of building a Conservative economy that has led to the flat wages and low growth she highlighted today.”

PA Media contributed to this report.