Category Archives: Liz Truss

Why OBR forecast is being held back until Kwarteng’s next fiscal plan

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Huge policy changes are needed to get UK back on track – so early publication would give an incomplete picture

The message the government wanted to get out was clear. After less than a month as prime minister, Liz Truss had converted from vocal scourge of Treasury orthodoxy to an active supporter.

Given the fallout in financial markets after the not-so-mini-budget, Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, laid on a heavily stage-managed meeting on Friday with officials from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s independent economic forecaster, to try to smooth over the mess.

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Treasury to delay publishing OBR forecast by six weeks after 7 October delivery – UK politics live

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Budget watchdog to give assessment of fiscal plans next week but public will have to wait until chancellor’s November statement

Following a meeting with the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed it will deliver an initial forecast on 7 October.

A spokesperson for the OBR said:

[The forecast] will, as always, be based on our independent judgment about economic and fiscal prospects and the impact of the government’s policies.

We discussed the economic and fiscal outlook, and the forecast we are preparing for the chancellor’s medium-term fiscal plan.

We will deliver the first iteration of that forecast to the chancellor on Friday 7 October, and will set out the full timetable up to 23 November next week.

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How Truss’s post-Brexit farming policy descended into chaos

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Rumours rife as farmers fear PM plans U-turn on financial subsidy measures to improve environment

The chaos in the English countryside began with the click of a civil servant’s mouse. At the end of last week, farmers who had been working with the government on environmental subsidy schemes saw that their regular meetings about it had been removed from their online diaries without warning.

This appeared to hint at what had been feared – that the new post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme was in danger of being scrapped.

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Truss and Kwarteng to hold back OBR forecasts for six weeks

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PM and chancellor say they will not publish projections until late November despite them being ready next week

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will refuse to release forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) until more than six weeks after receiving them, despite calls for them to be published as soon as possible.

The prime minister and chancellor said they would only publish the independent forecasts on 23 November alongside a fiscal statement, despite them being ready on 7 October.

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Arab diplomats urge Liz Truss not to move British embassy to Jerusalem

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Private letter says ‘illegal’ plan could jeopardise free trade deal between UK and Gulf Cooperation Council

Arab ambassadors in London are urging Liz Truss not to go ahead with “an illegal and ill-judged” plan to move the British embassy to Jerusalem.

Some Arab diplomats have even said the plan could jeopardise talks on a highly prized free trade deal between the UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council due to be completed this year.

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OBR: we offered to update forecasts in time for ‘mini-budget’ – live

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Watchdog said it was ready to supply information, but was not asked to do so by Kwasi Kwarteng

Q: Can you reassure listeners that your judgment is better than that of people like the IMF and the Bank of England, who have criticised the mini-budget?

Truss says:

I have to do what I believe is right for the country and what is going to help move our country forward.

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Liz Truss to attend first meeting of European Political Community

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Inaugural summit of EU initiative that aims to unite Europe on issues such as security and energy to take place in Prague

Liz Truss will attend the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) next week, an initiative by the EU aimed at uniting the continent to work together on security and other common projects.

The prime minister plans to attend the first EPC summit in Prague on 6 October, a No 10 source told the Guardian, despite her scepticism about the EU-led initiative.

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Truss ‘standing by Kwarteng’ as Treasury defends plans despite market turmoil – as it happened

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No 10 says PM has faith in chancellor, as Treasury minister says tax cuts are the ‘right plan’. This blog is now closed

Q: When would you get debt falling as a proprotion of GDP?

Starmer says Labour does want to get that down.

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Truss and Kwarteng had row over sterling crisis response, say Whitehall sources

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First signs of friction between PM and chancellor emerge as pound falls to historic low following mini-budget

The first signs of friction between Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng over how to deal with the tanking pound have emerged, after the pair met in No 10 to thrash out how to respond on Monday.

Downing Street rebuffed talk of a split between No 10 and No 11 over how to deal with the market reaction to the mini-budget, and denied that there was a row.

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Homeowners warned of ‘significant’ rise in UK interest rates

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Bank of England’s chief economist speaks out after mini-budget, with financial markets expecting rates to reach up to 6%

Britain’s homeowners have been warned to brace themselves for a “significant” increase in interest rates from the Bank of England in response to Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax-cutting mini-budget last week.

Huw Pill, Threadneedle Street’s chief economist, added to the concerns of millions of mortgage payers who have already seen hundreds of home loan products pulled by lenders in anticipation of a big increase in the cost of borrowing.

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Party conference will be last before Labour governs, says Andy Burnham

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Greater Manchester mayor predicts regaining lost ‘red wall’ seats in Q&A with Guardian editor-in-chief

Andy Burnham has said Labour is on the brink of government, predicting the party will win back all of the “red wall” seats it lost in 2019.

The Greater Manchester mayor also doubled down on calls for Labour to reinstate the 20p tax rate after planned cuts by Liz Truss, saying the money should be directed to public sector pay, and reiterated calls for nationalisation of the railways, calling it a “no-brainer”.

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Liz Truss ‘plans to loosen immigration rules to boost UK economy’

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PM expected to expand shortage occupation list to help businesses fill jobs amid recession warnings

Liz Truss is expected to loosen immigration rules in an attempt to stimulate economic growth amid warnings of a recession.

The prime minister is set to expand the government’s shortage occupation list in order to help businesses fill vacancies by recruiting overseas workers with less bureaucracy.

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Time is against Liz Truss as she bets big on plan to turn economy around

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With an election two years away, any failure of her radical approach could shred the Tories’ credibility

When Liz Truss flew to the US this week on her first foreign trip as prime minister, she was unequivocal about how she would achieve her mission in office: “Lower taxes lead to economic growth, there is no doubt in my mind about that.”

There was not a quiver of self-doubt in her voice as she gave a round of television interviews at the top of the Empire State Building expanding on her plans for the economy and saying she was “willing to be unpopular” to push them through.

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Truss axes national security council, sparking ‘talking-shop’ concerns

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Labour says new merged foreign policy council could reduce Whitehall policy-makers’ focus on security

Liz Truss has scrapped the national security council and merged it with two Boris Johnson-era foreign policy committees in a structure that Labour warned risked diluting the government’s security focus.

Created in 2010 under the coalition, led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to better coordinate security policy after the disaster of the Iraq war, the NSC is now to be replaced by a broad eight-strong foreign policy and security council (FPSC).

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Mini-budget 2022: pound crashes as chancellor cuts stamp duty and top rate of income tax – live

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Tax cuts to cost Treasury around £37bn in 2023-24, official figures reveal

There are no urgent questions in the morning, and so Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, will be delivering his statement soon after 9.30am.

The Commons starts sitting at 9.30am, but they always begin with prayers in private, and so Kwarteng will be up a few minutes later.

The last time they did it one third of the beneficiaries were people buying second homes or buy to let, so we are sceptical that this is the magic bullet to increase homeownership. What we really need to do is to build more houses and to help get people onto the property ladder by increasing the supply of housing.

When this has been done before, it has often fuelled an already hot market and many of the beneficiaries have been people buying a second or third home, rather than the first time buyers that we really want to help who are often trapped in private rented accommodation where they’re paying as much in rent every month as they would in a mortgage.

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Starmer must not ‘sit back’ if Labour is to win next election, Mandelson says

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Former cabinet minister urges Labour leader to be ‘restless for change’ and challenge ‘post-truth’ campaign by Truss government

Liz Truss will mount a “post-truth” campaign presenting the Conservatives as the party of change at the next election, Peter Mandelson has warned, as he called on Keir Starmer not to “sit back” and assume automatic victory.

While Labour has held a steady lead in the opinion polls for nine months, Starmer was urged by the former cabinet minister to “do a better job” of showing voters how the party has evolved under his leadership to cement its chances of entering government.

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Liz Truss could follow Trump and move UK embassy to Jerusalem

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PM considering breaking with decades of British foreign policy by relocating UK embassy in Israel

Liz Truss has said she is considering relocating the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a controversial move that would break with decades of UK foreign policy in order to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump.

In a meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, the prime minister told Israel’s caretaker leader, Yair Lapid, about a “review of the current location” of the building, Downing Street said in a statement.

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Striking union members should ‘get back to work’, says Liz Truss

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PM maintains pledge to bring in measures limiting industrial action but denies planning to rip up EU rules on workers’ rights

Liz Truss has told striking workers to “get back to work” as she doubled down on her pledge to bring in measures to limit industrial action within weeks of coming to power.

The prime minister suggested that a planned wave of strikes by workers ranging from train drivers to barristers, risked holding the country back during the toughest economic climate in a generation.

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Liz Truss dismisses Putin’s nuclear threats as ‘statement of weakness’

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UK PM spurns Russian president’s ‘sabre-rattling’ as she prepares call for democratic renewal in UN address

Liz Truss has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia will use “all the means at our disposal” to protect itself as “sabre-rattling” in advance of her UN speech, where she will warn him: “This will not work.”

The Russian president’s threats in a televised address to the nation appeared to suggest the conflict in Ukraine could spiral into a nuclear crisis, prompting a furious response from world leaders, led by the US president, Joe Biden.

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Liz Truss may face Lords rebellion over Northern Ireland bill

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Exclusive: about 50 peers due to meet on Wednesday morning to discuss how to amend or halt proposed legislation

Liz Truss is facing a potential House of Lords rebellion over proposed legislation to rip up part of the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland amid concerns that it gives ministers “dictatorial” powers to pen and pass laws without scrutiny.

About 50 Conservative, Labour and cross party peers are due to meet on Wednesday morning to discuss how they can amend or halt the Northern Ireland bill which has already passed through the House of Commons.

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