LIZ Truss has vowed to rush through a cut to National Insurance contributions if she becomes the country’s new PM next month.
She’d initially planned to reverse the rise in April 2023 – but now says it could be brought in within weeks if she wins the leadership contest.
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Team Truss has already promised an emergency budget to halt the increase brought in by Rishi Sunak.
The Foreign Secretary intends to cut taxes and suspend the green levy on energy bills in a bid to stave off a gruelling year-long recession.
But her rival Mr Sunak has blasted her new scheme – and says she’s “simply wrong”.
The move wouldn’t be a big help to those suffering the most amid the cost of living crisis, he claims.
Mr Sunak says he’s the candidate who can do the most to support ordinary Brits.
Either Ms Truss or Mr Sunak will become Prime Minister on September 5.
Workers have been paying an extra 1.25p in the pound for their National Insurance since April.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Truss said she wanted to “immediately tackle the cost of living crisis”.
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“I would hit the ground running by bringing in an emergency budget, charting a firm course to get our economy growing in order to help fund our public services and NHS,” she said.
But Mr Sunak, who has argued that inflation must be brought under control before taxes are lowered, told the Sunday Times: “The priority for me is to not do things that make it worse.”
And he said Brits need “clear-eyed realism and not starry-eyed boosterism”.
Ms Truss’s plans would give back less than £200 a year to many families, and “are not going to help very significantly” pensioners and those on low incomes, he says.
It comes as former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Ms Truss, Mr Sunak and Boris Johnson must meet and prepare an emergency budget now.
Writing for the Observer, he warned “a financial timebomb will explode for families in October” when the energy price cap next rises.
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A report commissioned by Mr Brown suggests some families are set to be £1,600 worse off per year.
The research claims the poorest families have suffered three major blows to their income between October 2021 to October 2022.
That includes the loss of the £20-a-week uplift to benefits, an annual rise in welfare payments that is below the current rate of inflation, and further increases in their energy.
“It is the urgent task of the next prime minister to ensure that families have enough to live, through this crisis and beyond,” Mr Brown said.
A Government spokesperson an extra £1,200 is already available to eight million of the most vulnerable households.
“Through our £37bn support package we are also saving the typical employee over £330 a year through a tax cut in July, allowing people on Universal Credit to keep £1,000 more of what they earn and cutting fuel duty by 5p, saving a typical family £100,” they added.
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