Britain's new finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday some taxes would go up and tough spending decisions were needed, signalling further reversals from Prime Minister Liz Truss as she battles to keep her job just over a month into her term.
In an attempt to appease financial markets that have been in turmoil for three weeks, Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor of the exchequer on Friday and scrapped parts of their controversial economic package.With opinion poll ratings dire for both the ruling Conservative Party and the prime minister personally, and many of her own lawmakers asking, not if, but how Truss should be removed, she has turned to Hunt to help salvage her premiership less than 40 days after taking office.
She has now ditched plans to cut tax for high earners, and said a levy on business would increase, abandoning her proposal to keep it at current levels. But it is not clear if that has gone far enough to satisfy investors.Hunt is due to announce the government's medium-term budget plans on Oct. 31, in what will be a key test of its ability to show it can restore its economic policy credibility. He said further changes to Truss's plans were possible.
"Some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want, and some taxes will go up. So it's going to be difficult," he said, adding that he would sit down with Treasury officials on Saturday before meeting Truss on Sunday to go through the plans.Kwarteng's Sept. 23 fiscal statement prompted a backlash in financial markets that was so ferocious the Bank of England had to intervene to prevent pension funds being caught up in the chaos as borrowing costs surged.
It was also a mistake, Hunt said, to "fly blind" and produce the tax plans without allowing the independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, to check the figures. However, she might not get that chance. During the leadership contest, Truss won support from less than a third of Conservative lawmakers and has appointed her backers since taking office - alienating those who support her rivals.
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