Chair of the Commons education committee defends former chancellor’s record on the economy and insists he was not disloyal to Boris Johnson
In his Sky News interview Robert Halfon, the Rishi Sunak supporter and Tory chair of the Commons education committee, also insisted that inflation was “the number one enemy of the cost of living” and that Sunak, not Liz Truss, had the best policies to bring it down.
Asked about Truss’s claim that Sunak’s high taxes had stifled growth, he replied:
I don’t accept that narrative at all. Yes he did put up corporation tax but don’t forget we spent £400bn during Covid. I mentioned the £80bn of debt interest that we have. We’re £2trn in debt overall. You have to pay some of that money back.
But he also cut taxes. He cut national insurance tax for 70% of households. He also cut business taxes for hospitality, retail and leisure.
It’s very early days of the contest. We just finished the MP elections and the former chancellor is going to be going around the country meeting members. I believe, when Rishi Sunak makes his case, more members will come and support him because they know he’s not making promises he can’t keep – and that’s the important thing.
Rishi Sunak was very loyal to the prime minister. He resigned when he just thought things had gone too far. He had differences with the prime minister over the economy but he was there til almost the very end. He was loyal right through the Partygate episode. Another MP went to see him and he refused to countenance any kind of disloyalty to the prime minister.
