Kwasi Kwarteng has told Tories ‘it’s been a tough day’ after his planned tax cuts for the rich caused ‘a little turbulence’.
The Chancellor is addressing the Tory party conference after a humiliating U-turn on axing the 45% rate on earnings over £150,000.
Until this morning, he had been due to tell a hall packed full of his colleagues ‘we must stay the course, I am confident our plan is the right one’.
But public outrage and a brewing Conservative rebellion pushed him to back down on the controversial plan this morning.
Opening his speech in Birmingham on Monday, he said: ‘What a day. It has been tough but we need to focus on the job in hand and move forward.
‘No more distractions, we have a plan and we need to get on and deliver it. That’s what the public expect from the government.’
Mr Kwarteng went onto claim he understood the anger over his plan, adding: ‘I know the plan put forward only 10 days ago has caused a little turbulence.
‘I get it, and we are listening. Now, we need to focus on delivering the major parts of the growth package.’
What was Kwasi Kwarteng going to say before the U-turn?
Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to lay out the financial future of the UK at the Conservative party conference.
While he will still be set to do this, there will certainly be some last-minute adjustments to his address following the U-turn.
The Chancellor had planned to tell the Conservative party conference: ‘We must stay the course. I am confident our plan is the right one.’
He had also been set to insist that his measures are vital to boost growth and avoid a ‘slow, managed decline’.
The mini-budget as a whole faced criticism from the International Monetary Fund and a £65 billion emergency intervention was made by the Bank of England to restore order.
But Downing Street has insisted Prime Minister Liz Truss continues to have confidence in Mr Kwarteng.
The climb down will be viewed as a huge blow to both politicians’ authority.
Ms Truss – who is just a month into her premiership – also said just 24 hours before that she remained absolutely committed to the cut.
Former cabinet minister Michael Gove had joined the fight against the planned tax cuts for Britain’s highest earners, naming it ‘a mistake’.
He said people who have the least should ‘benefit first’ with any cuts to tax.
Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps also said the government should not be making ‘big giveaways to those who need them least… not least because it is being paid for with borrowed money’.
Other several senior Tories including former chief whip Julian Smith and former ministers George Freeman and Lord Vaizey, had called on the prime minister to backtrack.
Sir Charles Walker even said the mini-Budget looked like ‘some numbers written down on the back of a fag packet’.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has slammed the last-minute change of heart, saying it ‘comes too late for the families who will pay higher mortgages and higher prices for years’.
Meanwhile, Labour MP Nadia Whittome said: ‘They’re not u-turning because they’ve “listened”.
‘They’re not even u-turning because they’ve caused the pound to collapse.
‘They’re u-turning because people saw whose interests they serve, and they don’t want to be wiped out in the next election. A shambles.’
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