Energy crisis dominates Prime Minister Liz Truss’ first question time

LONDON

Barely a day into her new post, Liz Truss’ first Prime Minister’s Questions was dominated by Britain’s escalating energy crisis, with opposition leader Keir Starmer trying to grill the new premier, while Truss fought back.

​​​​​​​Starmer asked Truss who would pay for her energy crisis plan, which is due to be announced tomorrow and is speculated to cost over £100 billion ($114 billion).

Truss replied: "I am against a windfall tax. I believe it's the wrong thing to be putting companies off investing in the UK just as we need to be growing the economy."

Starmer said energy companies are set to make £170 billion in excess profits according to the Treasury, and so Truss was letting them off the hook while making ordinary people and businesses pay the bill.

"The real choice, the political choice, is who is going to pay?” Starmer asked.

"Is she really telling us that she's going to leave these vast excess profits on the table and make working people foot the bill for decades to come?" he added.

Truss doubled down on her refusal to raise taxes, saying it would deter investment.

"The last time we cut corporation tax we attracted more revenue into the Exchequer because more companies wanted to base themselves in Britain, more companies wanted to invest in our country,” she said.

Starmer said there was “nothing new” about the prime minister, as she was “re-heating” previous Conservative policies on corporation tax, “protecting oil and gas profits and forcing working people to pay the bill.”

Truss hit back that there was “nothing new about a Labour leader calling for higher taxes.”

“He doesn't understand aspiration, he doesn't understand that people want to keep more of their own money,” he added.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May was one of the MPs who spoke during the session, asking Truss why it was that “all three female prime ministers have been Conservative.”

Truss said to laughter on her benches: "There doesn't seem to be the ability in the Labour Party to find a female leader, or indeed a leader who doesn't come from North London.”

Truss officially took office on Tuesday after her fellow Conservative MPs voted her into the post and Queen Elizabeth duly appointed her.

She succeeds Boris Johnson, whose three-year premiership was torpedoed by a series of damaging scandals.