Premiership of Liz Truss


's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 6 September 2022 when she accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Boris Johnson, and ended 49 days later on 25 October upon her resignation. As prime minister, she served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union.
Truss defeated Rishi Sunak in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election on 5 September and was appointed prime minister the following day. Elizabeth II's death on 8 September caused government business to be suspended during a national mourning period of 10 days. In response to the cost-of-living crisis and energy supply crisis, the Truss ministry announced the Energy Price Guarantee, which reduced energy prices for households, businesses, and public sector organisations. Kwasi Kwarteng, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced large-scale borrowing and tax cuts in a mini-budget on 23 September. The mini-budget was widely criticised and largely reversed, having led to financial instability.
Truss dismissed Kwarteng without explanation on 14 October and appointed Jeremy Hunt to succeed him. Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary on 19 October after admitting to having used her personal email address to send a Cabinet document. Her resignation letter was critical of Truss's government. On the evening of 19 October, MPs voted to reject a motion which would guarantee parliamentary time for a bill to ban fracking in the UK. The vote was controversial as it was unclear whether a three-line-whip had been issued to Conservative MPs, ordering them to vote against it. Allegations of "manhandling" and intimidation were made by a number of MPs against some government ministers. Following these events, together with mounting criticism and loss of confidence in her leadership, Truss announced on 20 October her intention to resign as party leader and as prime minister. Sunak was elected unopposed as her successor and succeeded her as leader on 24 October and as prime minister on 25 October.

Conservative leadership bid

launched her bid to succeed Boris Johnson on 10 July 2022. During the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, she pledged to cut taxes by scrapping the National Insurance rise that had previously been announced in April 2022, scrapping the recent corporation tax rise and also promised to remove green energy levies. During the campaign, when asked whether French President Emmanuel Macron was a friend or foe, Truss replied that the "jury was out" and that she would judge Macron based on his "deeds not words". During a hustings event, Truss suggested that it would be best to ignore the "attention seeker" Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon before rejecting the possibility of a second independence referendum for Scotland.
Truss finished second in the fifth round of voting amongst the Conservative Parliamentary Party on 20 July 2022 with 113 votes behind Rishi Sunak with 137 votes, qualifying her for the final vote amongst the membership. She defeated Rishi Sunak in the members' vote with 57.4 per cent of the vote against Sunak's 42.6 per cent. She became the fourth consecutive Conservative Party prime minister since 2010, and the third female prime minister, following Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. Following the announcement there were protests in London.

Premiership

First speech and initial appointments

Truss made her first speech as prime minister in Downing Street on 6 September. In the speech she thanked and praised Johnson, and focused on economic growth, similar to during her campaign. Truss also stated the need for an energy plan as well other foreign policy statements. Loud music was played outside Downing Street by protesters as Truss spoke.
With the appointment of Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary, and Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, for the first time in British political history, no white men held positions in the Great Offices of State.
Other key appointments included that of Thérèse Coffey as Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary, Brandon Lewis as Justice Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Chris Heaton-Harris as Northern Ireland Secretary, Jake Berry as Minister without Portfolio and Party chairman, Jacob Rees-Mogg as Business Secretary, Simon Clarke as Housing Secretary, Kemi Badenoch as Secretary of State for International Trade, Chloe Smith as Work and Pensions Secretary, Kit Malthouse as Education Secretary, Ranil Jayawardena as Environment Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan as Transport Secretary, and Michael Ellis as Attorney General for England and Wales. Truss retained Ben Wallace as Defence Secretary, Alok Sharma as President for COP26, Alister Jack as Scotland Secretary, Robert Buckland as Wales Secretary, and James Heappey as Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans
In September 2022, Truss's chief of staff Mark Fullbrook was revealed to have been questioned by the FBI regarding an election bribe in Puerto Rico. Dominic Johnson was given a life peerage to enable him to be appointed as an investment minister. Johnson was a Conservative Party donor and gave the Conservatives over £300,000, and former business partner of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Death of Queen Elizabeth II

Truss was the fifteenth and final prime minister to serve under Queen Elizabeth II, who died two days after appointing her. Her death at the age of 96 was announced by Buckingham Palace on 8 September at 6.30 pm. Truss delivered a statement outside 10 Downing Street paying tribute to the Queen, stating that "Queen Elizabeth II was the rock on which modern Britain was built." A video from 1994 emerged around this time of Truss branding the monarchy "disgraceful" and advocating for a republic. Truss was then the president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats.
The House of Commons began two days of special tributes to the Queen on 9 September and started the suspension of Parliament until 21 September during the national mourning period. Truss attended the Accession Ceremony of Charles III the following day and took an oath of allegiance to the King alongside other senior MPs. On 12 September, King Charles III addressed Parliament for the first time as monarch. She also attended the state funeral of Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey on 19 September, where she read a lesson during the service.

Cost of living crisis and energy policies

In response to the UK cost of living crisis, Truss set out plans to launch the Energy Price Guarantee, a scheme to freeze energy bills at an average of £2,500 a year for two years to support homes and businesses through the crisis. Truss stated that the government would fund the scheme by reducing the unit cost of energy through increased borrowing. The initiative was forecast to cost approximately £150 billion in taxpayer funds to energy suppliers to make up the difference between what they pay for power in the wholesale markets, and the capped consumer prices. Additionally, it was announced that green levies worth on average £150 per year would be removed temporarily. To fund the scheme, the Labour Party had proposed a windfall tax on excess profits of energy companies; however, Truss rejected these proposals claiming that it would deter investment. Truss claimed that her proposals would save each household £1,000 a year on average.
As part of Truss's cost of living proposals, energy resilience was also highlighted as a priority including plans to lift the moratorium on fracking for shale gas in the near future and launching a new round of approximately 100 new oil and gas licences. Equally, Truss planned to accelerate new sources of energy supply including nuclear, wind and solar energy. Many northern Conservative MPs oppose ending the moratorium on fracking. Mark Menzies led this group and Menzies insisted that fracking had no local support.

Industrial relations

Throughout the summer and autumn of 2022, several railway strikes took place, after a ballot of National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers members over whether they should take industrial action. The dispute between the government and rail companies were concerning pay, redundancies and changes to terms and conditions. The RMT suggested that salaries should increase due to the ongoing cost of living crisis. Furthermore, the RMT highlighted the issue of redundancies with Network Rail planning on cutting 2,500 jobs within the next two years. In the same period, criminal barristers had begun striking during her predecessor's premiership. On 10 October 2022, barristers voted to end the strike after reaching a deal with Truss's Secretary of State for Justice, Brandon Lewis.

Trussonomics and the September 2022 mini-budget

Advocation for Trussonomics by the Free Enterprise Group

Truss's economic policies, called "Trussonomics", were advocated by the Free Enterprise Group, a group of Thatcherite-leaning Conservative Party MPs founded by Truss in mid-2011. The policies are based upon the principle of reducing the overall tax burden, as part of a model intended to create a high-growth, free-market economy.

Proposals of the mini-budget and snubbing the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)

The policies of Trussonomics involve extensive tax cuts in addition to reducing government regulation and repealing employment laws to attract businesses, encourage entrepreneurship, and grow the economy. Proponents of Trussonomics argue that lower taxes would pay for themselves by encouraging economic growth, a theory known as supply-side economics. The tax cuts proposed in the Truss–Kwarteng mini-budget were therefore to be funded by borrowing. The proponents' expectations were that, kick-started by a temporary scheme of lending, tax revenue would eventually increase due to growth in the economy, relieving the need for amassing debt from the tax-cutting measures. Trussonomics was influenced by the economic policies of Ronald Reagan, known as Reaganomics, and of Nigel Lawson, the second Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher. Matthew Sinclair was her chief economist.
In response to a stagnant economy, a mini-budget was announced in September 2022 with "growth" as its key ambition. It led to a run on sterling, a fall in gilt markets, lost confidence among global investors and criticism from the International Monetary Fund. It included measures in several sectors such as taxation, benefits, work and investment, stamp duty, energy, bankers' bonuses, shopping, infrastructure and investment zones. The package which was announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng relied heavily on government borrowing. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the IMF among others were sceptical that £45 billion unfunded tax cuts could lead to economic growth and pay for itself as the government hoped. Within the budget, Kwarteng removed the 45 per cent rate of income tax paid by those earning more than £150,000 a year, reversed the rise in national insurance contributions and brought forward by a year the reduction in the basic rate of income tax from 20 per cent to 19 per cent planned for 2024 whilst also scrapping the cap on bankers' bonuses.
As part of the mini-budget, Kwarteng announced a cut on stamp duty. Buyers in England and Northern Ireland would pay no stamp duty on the first £250,000 of a property's value, with the previous threshold being £125,000. For first-time buyers, no tax would be paid on the first £425,000. However, experts said that the cut in stamp duty was unlikely to help first-time homebuyers to get on the property ladder and risked pushing up house prices further. Kwarteng refused to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility to assess the economic impact of the mini budget prior to its announcement. Conservative MP Mel Stride, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, wanted independent forecasts published to "provide reassurance and confidence to international markets and investors".