LEADING Liz Truss supporter Brandon Lewis MP said she is ready to hit the ground running, if she wins the Tory leadership contest.
The former Northern Ireland secretary told GB News: “Liz has been leading the way on calling for reductions in tax and putting more money in people’s pockets for some time, with opponents saying that’s fairytale stuff…
“We need to get on with doing that now not waiting a few years to see what we can do and Liz has been leading the way on that and continues to be in the space that she wants to have an emergency budget, get money in people’s pockets now to deal with the challenges that people are seeing
Asked how tax cut could help people who do not pay tax, he said: “Obviously tax cuts help people who are paying tax, what we also need to do is make sure that we’ve got a growing economy to create more jobs for more people to get to a level where they’re paying tax, and also to make sure that we are delivering on our energy security to make sure that we’re doing everything we can in the medium and long term as well as the short term to bring down not just create energy security but to bring down those prices.
“Now that’s a global challenge. We’re seeing both with energy challenges and prices and inflation partly because of the war in Ukraine.
“But we can do more ourselves domestically as well to protect that security by seeing investment in that sector in the short and medium term.”
Speaking during an interview with Isabel Webster and Paul Hawkins on GB News, he added: “She wants to do this the right way, she wants to move quickly if she becomes Prime Minister, she wants to have an emergency budget and obviously an emergency budget would deal with these very issues.
“What she’s setting out at the moment is that overarching set of principles that will guide her as Prime Minister and whoever our chancellor is, which is have a low tax economy, so more money for people who are paying tax to be able to spend in the way they see fit to deal with these challenges, but also to have one that’s all based on a high wage and high productivity economy so we’re seeing more jobs created for people, but in the even in the short term can make quite a big difference to the security that people have in their homes.”
Mr Lewis added: “Liz has led the way in trying to talk about how we make sure we’re getting more money in people’s pockets. It’s a very fair challenge.
“The reality is these things are not mutually exclusive. What we want to do and what Liz Truss wants to do is get on top of and deal with the challenges that we’re seeing with inflation, get inflation under control, but also be putting more money in people’s pockets.
“Some people are arguing that you can do one or the other. It’s just not the case. Actually, you can look at how you deal with inflation, whilst also keeping our low tax economy.
Asked if her plans would require more borrowing, Mr Lewis said: “Not necessarily…what Liz has already outlined is within the budget that is already set out from the Treasury that we have, but also some of these things.
So for example, one of the things I remember being in the media talking about a few years ago was as we were reducing corporation tax, which of course is the one tax that companies can do a direct comparison around the world when they look into investing grow internationally what is now a faster and faster growing global economy.”
“When they’re looking at that, that’s something that means that they invest more so you can reduce the tax percentage, but actually see the take go up because more companies invest more companies grow they make more profit and therefore they ultimately pay more tax and employ more people.
“This is the point. If you get these things right, you can see growth, you can see more money in people’s pockets whilst reducing tax and have the money to invest in public services. That’s what we want to achieve.
“That comes with a high productivity, high growth, low tax economy and that’s what Liz wants to deliver.”
