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There Were Mistakes In Liz Truss' Mini-Budget, Says UK's New Finance Minister
UK's Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt (Richard Townshend/Wikimedia)
After being appointed as the UK's new Finance Minister, Jeremy Hunt stated his predecessor had made "mistakes", referring to planned tax cuts announced by Kwasi Kwarteng.
He, however, stressed that Prime Minister Liz Truss should be given more time.
"It was a mistake when we were going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by the very wealthiest," Hunt told Sky news.
The new Chancellor warned of difficult decisions ahead and said that corporation taxes will go up.
"I want to be honest with people, we have some very difficult decisions ahead. The last few weeks have been very tough, but the context of that is coming out of a pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis. No chancellor can control the markets, but what I can do is show that we can pay for our tax and spending plans and that is going to need some very difficult decisions," Hunt said.
"We won't have the speed of tax cuts we were hoping for and some taxes will go up," he added.
When he was asked by Sky news if this will mean a return to austerity, the new Chancellor replied, "I don't think we're talking about austerity in the way we had it in 2010. But we're going to have to take tough decisions on both spending and tax."
The mention of tough decisions on spending raised questions about cuts to the NHS' budget. On responding to a question if the NHS' budget was going to suffer, Hunt replied "no", adding that "the government's already made that commitment".
Jeremy Hunt was appointed chancellor after Kwasi Kwarteng, the previous chancellor was sacked by Liz Truss, as she attempted to ward off the pressure on her to quit.
Some Tory MPs have reportedly asked why Kwarteng was forced to take the fall for Truss, when he was merely following economic policies espoused by Truss during the leadership race.
Liz Truss, during her press conference on Friday, announced that she was making an u-turn on her corporate tax cut proposals. Labour MP and senior leader David Lammy said sacking the Chancellor won't suffice and called for a general election.
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