Liz Truss suggests response to cost of living crisis should be tax cuts as Labour renews calls for emergency budget – UK politics live

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As my colleague Graeme Wearden writes on his business live blog, the Resolution Foundation thinktank is urging the government to help poorer families now, after calculating that those on lowest incomes are now suffering double-digit inflation, while richer households are less badly hit.

This tweet, from Jack Leslie from the Resolution Foundation, helps to illustrate the point.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, told Times Radio this morning that the UK was open to the idea of an international criminal tribunal trying Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders over the war in Ukraine.

Asked by the Ukrainian MP Alexey Goncharenko if the UK would support the move, Truss replied:

Well, we are very clear that Putin and all of those who’ve been behind the appalling war crimes that are being committed in Ukraine need to be held to account, and we’re working very closely with the ICC [International Criminal Court].

We’ve sent support into Ukraine to help collect evidence, from witness statements to video evidence.

I’ve talked to the Ukrainian government about this idea of a tribunal. We are open to the idea of a tribunal, we’re currently considering it, but what we want is the most effective way of prosecuting those people who have committed these appalling war crimes including rape, sexual violence, the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.

If the tribunal will help to do that, then the UK is definitely considering supporting it.

Petrol and diesel prices have reached record highs, PA Media reports. PA says:

Statistics from data firm Experian Catalist show the average cost of a litre of petrol at UK forecourts on Tuesday was 167.6p.

The previous record of 167.3p was set on 22 March, the day before a 5p cut in fuel duty was implemented.

Diesel prices continue to climb to new highs, reaching an average of 180.9p per litre on Tuesday.

That was the same day Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, wrote to fuel retailers “to remind them of their responsibilities” following claims retailers hiked profits following the reduction in duty.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told Times Radio this morning that she thought the EU was being “overzealous” in the checks it wanted on goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain under the Northern Ireland protocol. But she said she wanted this resolved through negotiation, and not by the UK suspending parts of the protocol. She said:

I think the EU are being overzealous in the checks.

There are goods that are destined for market in Northern Ireland, never going to leave Northern Ireland, never going to get into the single market, which is what the EU say is their worry.

For those goods that are just moving into Northern Ireland then I just don’t think we need the level of checks the EU are pursuing.

But the way to resolve this is not through megaphone diplomacy, it’s not unilaterally ripping up the protocol, it’s by working in partnership to resolve these very real issues that do exist.

Labour has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech motion calling for an emergency budget. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told BBC Breakfast that an emergency budget was needed because the government’s response to the cost of living crisis had been inadequate. She said:

Today in parliament, Labour will be calling another vote and urging the government to introduce an emergency budget because it is clear that the actions taken to date by the government did not meet the scale of the challenge.

Families and pensioners are really struggling right now and the government must urgently come forward with additional measures to help people with this incredible increase now.

Labour has been calling for an emergency budget for some time. It has said this should include: a windfall tax, with the proceeds used to cut energy bills; a cut in business rates for small and medium-sized enterprises; the abolition of the national insurance increase; a home insulation programme; and a National Crime Agency investigation into government spending lost to fraud.

This is from Jill Rutter, a former Treasury civil servant who now works at the Institute for Government thinktank, on Liz Truss’s interviews this morning.

Good morning. The most important political story around this morning is the news that inflation reached 9% in April, its highest level for 40 years. Phillip Inman has the detail here.

And my colleague Graeme Wearden is covering reaction on his business live blog.

The inflation figures are normally primarily a concern for economists, but a 9% inflation rate is also a cost of living crisis, and this is certain to dominate the first prime minister’s questions of this parliamentary session, at 12pm.

In the meantime Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has been doing interviews this morning. Ministers are under intense pressure to unveil an emergency financial package to help people deal with rising costs, and in our overnight story we look at some of the options on the table. Truss told the Today programme that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, was looking at this “very, very urgently”, but she would not say when any announcement might come.

There have been increasing hints from government that its response might include a windfall tax on energy companies that could be used to fund help for consumers. Sunak firmly opposed the idea when Labour first proposed it, but now he has accepted that it’s an option. The Daily Telegraph today says that internal government polling shows the idea is “wildly popular” with the public – which should be no surprise to anyone because that it was what external polling shows too.

Truss did not get into detail on what the government would, or should, do on the cost of living crisis. But in her interviews she did forcefully intervene in the internal Tory debate on this issue, signalling her disapproval of the windfall tax proposal and suggesting instead that tax cuts were needed. Asked about the windfall tax on Sky News, she said:

The problem with a windfall tax is it makes it difficult to attract future investment into our country. So there is a cost in imposing a tax like that. And my view is lower taxes are the best way to attract more investment, to get the businesses into this country that can create these high-paid jobs, which is what we need to face down these global headwinds.

When it was put to her that the head of BP had said that a windfall tax would not stop his company investing in the UK over the next decade, she replied:

Well, then he can do even more if he’s got more profits that have been raised during this period.

And, on the Today programme, when asked what the government should be doing, Truss again stressed the need for tax cuts – and the importance of investment.

The key response to the huge global inflation crisis we’re facing is to make sure our economy grows. That’s what’s going to help people, it’s going to help people in work, it’s going to help generate the income. To do that we need to attract business investment. We’ve been successful at attracting business investments so far. We need to do more. And what we know is a low-tax economy helps deliver that business investment, helps deliver those jobs.

Truss will almost certainly be a candidate in the next Conservative leadership contest, and for many in the party slashing taxation is a core article of faith. That does not mean Truss was making a leadership pitch today – she says these things because she believes them – but that’s the context within which she is making these arguments.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.15am: Lord Burnett of Maldon, the lord chief justice, gives evidence to the Lords constitution committee.

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

1.30pm: Dame Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive at the UK Health Security Agency, and Shona Dunn, second permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about contracts with Randox Laboratories.

2.30pm: Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee on international aid.

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