They want to change Tory MPs boris johnson Today saw a flurry of promises – including tax cuts for millions of workers – as they looked to bolster support for their rival bids to become prime minister.
There are nine official candidates in a wide-open competition to become the next Conservative leader, with the number of contenders increasing by the day.
Chancellor Nadim Jahvi, Transport Secretary Grant Shappsand attorney general Suella Braverman all have formally announced leadership bids from within the cabinet – while Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is expected to put herself forward as a candidate within the next 24 hours.
International Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt and Equality Minister Cami Badenoch have also launched bids from the lower ranks of the government.
Former health secretaries Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt, former chancellor Rishi Sunak and House of Commons foreign affairs committee chairman Tom Tugendhat have publicly announced their candidacy from the Tory back bench.
Still, despite the long list of candidates, a senior figure on the 1922 committee of the Conservatives insisted that contenders be narrowed down to the last two until lawmakers go on summer vacation from July 21.
Former health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid have both joined the race for Boris Johnson to take over as PM
Tom Tugendhat and Grant Shapps have also announced their candidacy to be the next Tory leader
Mr Shapps, Mr Javid, Mr Hunt and Mr Tugendhat all used the TV interviews this morning to set out their policy pledges.
Speaking to Sky News’ Sophie Ridge on Sunday’s show, Mr Shapps vowed to have an ’emergency budget’ as soon as he becomes PM to bring forward an immediate 1p cut in income tax.
He also promised to remove the planned increase in corporation tax from 19 percent to 25 percent, and to increase defense spending by billions of pounds so that it reaches three percent of GDP.
Asked how he would fulfill his tax promises, Mr Shapps pointed to cuts in government spending such as reducing the civil service and increasing efficiency.
Appearing at the same event, Mr Tugendhat vowed to reverse the 1.25 per cent increase in national insurance that Mr Johnson had introduced to boost NHS and social care spending.
As he backed his ’10-year economic plan’, the senior backbencher also promised action on the ‘crippling’ fuel duty and said he would ‘look at’ the corporation tax rate.
But he hit back on the question of whether he supported public sector wage hikes in line with rising inflation, or how he would deliver on his promises.
Mr Javid, a former chancellor who stepped down as health secretary last week to brush off Mr Johnson’s fallout, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning Show that his tax-cutting plans cost around £39bn a year. – although this did not include a further reduction in fuel charges. short term.
The former cabinet minister said he does not believe in ‘unfunded tax cuts’, adding: ‘I will prepare a scorecard in the next few days showing how we financed all of that in a sustainable manner.’
Mr Javid said he believed that in the current financial situation, the country could end the national insurance increase and still fund the promised boost to the NHS and social care.
But Mr Hunt – who became Britain’s longest-serving health secretary with a six-year term between 2012 and 2018 – said he would not reverse the national insurance increase because ‘the NHS needs the money’ .
He also clarified other immediate tax pledges for families, saying: ‘I want to reduce personal taxes but I think we have to be honest with people that before we can do that, we need to get the economy going. Will have to increase.
Mr. Hunt outlined his intention to reduce the corporation tax to 15 percent.
“It’s not the sexiest of the cuts, but it just matters in terms of getting our economy going and entrepreneurs like me feel very strongly about that,” he told Sky News.
Mr Hunt also announced today that he would make former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey his deputy PM.
Aiming to boost his credibility on the Conservative Party’s authority, Mr Hunt claimed he and Ms McVey – the founder of the ‘Blue Collar Conservatism’ group – would be a ‘formidable’ pair.
He compared the move to how Tony Blair had made John Prescott his deputy PM in the new Labor governments.
Mr Sunak, who dramatically stepped down as chancellor on Tuesday night within minutes of Mr Javid’s resignation, became the front runner in the Tory leadership race and attracted the support of nearly 30 Conservative MPs.
But, as a sign of how bitter the Tories could be during the contest, former cabinet minister David Davis appeared to take a dig at Mr Sunak’s early campaigning.
The former Brexit secretary – in a spoof aimed at the ex-chancellor – offered this advice to rival candidates: ‘We’ve been hearing all kinds of sad stories about people from poverty-stricken backgrounds, where people are probably richer than I am. in a thousand years.
‘So be straight, don’t try and make fictional history and focus on what is right for the country.’
Mr. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy are estimated to be worth £730 million and have several properties.
On Friday night, the ex-chancellor began his leadership campaign with a slick video that highlighted how his family moved from East Africa to Britain in the 1960s.
Mr Davis told Sky News he was considering supporting Mr Shapps, Mr Hunt or Miss Truss as candidates with “some experience”.
Senior Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown – treasurer of the 1922 committee that oversees the Tory leadership competition – said he was ‘absolutely confident’ that by the time of the Commons recess the long list of candidates would be reduced to the final two . 21 July.
A round of voting between Conservative MPs narrows the field of Tory contenders before the final pair faces a ballot for party-wide membership.
Sir Geoffrey told the LBC: ‘I think it’s important that we get our side of the process, I call it phase one, the parliamentary side of the process, done in the summer before Parliament goes for recess, Because it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to do it when Parliament is in recess.
‘I think it is imperative and I really think that on behalf of the country we need to make sure that we continue this whole process so that the period of uncertainty is as short as possible before we get a new prime minister. ‘