Sunak vows to protect the vulnerable as he rebuilds economic stability

Rishi Sunak has pledged to rebuild the public finances in a way that is “fair and compassionate” as he brushed off opposition demands for an immediate general election.

In his first Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Sunak said he would always protect the most vulnerable as the Government addressed the “mistakes” of his predecessor Liz Truss.

Earlier, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that his Halloween budget setting out the measures to get the UK’s deficit under control was being delayed to November 17 to take account of the very latest economic forecasts.

In noisy exchanges with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Sunak acknowledged that it would involve “difficult decisions” in order to restore “economic confidence and stability”.

“I will always protect the most vulnerable. We did it in Covid and we will do it again,” he said.

“This Government is going to restore economic confidence and stability and we will do it in a fair and compassionate way.”

In a combative session, Sir Keir attacked Mr Sunak’s controversial decision to reappoint Suella Braverman as Home Secretary just six days after she was forced to resign over a security breach.

The Labour leader said it was a sign of the weakness of his position that he had to do a “grubby deal” with a prominent figure on the Tory right to ensure he gained the leadership this time around.

He taunted him over his defeat by Ms Truss in the last leadership contest over the summer.

“The only time he ran in a competitive election he got trounced by the former prime minister who herself got beaten by a lettuce,” he said.

“So why doesn’t he put it to the test, let working people have their say and call a general election?”

Mr Sunak responded that he had a mandate based on the Conservative Party manifesto on which they won the 2019 election.

Earlier Mr Hunt informed the first meeting of the new Cabinet that he and the Prime Minister had agreed it would be “prudent” to delay the medium-term fiscal plan which will now be a full autumn statement.

He said that it would enable them to take account of the latest economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) which will be published at the same time.

“But it’s also extremely important that that statement is based on the most accurate possible economic forecasts and forecasts of public finances,” he said in a statement to broadcasters.

“The OBR also want to make sure that their forecasts are the most accurate possible and there have been a lot of changes even in the last 48 hours,” he said.

“This is my recommendation to the Prime Minister as the best way to ensure that the decisions that we take, these very, very difficult decisions, are ones that stand the test of time.”

Mr Hunt said he discussed the move with Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Tuesday night, adding he (Mr Bailey) “understands the reasons for doing that and I’ll continue to work very closely with him”.

Ahead of the statement, Downing Street refused to say whether the Government stood by Ms Truss’s commitments to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of the decade and to maintain the triple-lock on state pensions.

The Prime Minister’s press secretary said: “That is something that is going to be wrapped up into the fiscal statement, we wouldn’t comment ahead of any fiscal statements or budgets.”

In the Commons, Sir Keir said the Tories had “crashed the economy” as he urged Mr Sunak to abolish tax exemption for wealthy foreigners living in the UK in a thinly veiled reference to his wife’s “non dom” status.

He also challenged the Prime Minister over leaked footage of Mr Sunak at a garden party in Tunbridge Wells describing how as chancellor he had channelled funding away from deprived areas to those that were better off.

“He pretends he’s on the side of working people, but in private he says something very different,” he said.

“Rather than apologise or pretend that he meant something else, why doesn’t he now do the right thing and undo the changes he made to those funding formulas?”

Mr Sunak said that he was simply being honest about the economic difficulties the country was facing.

“I told the truth for the good of the country, he told his party what it wanted to hear. Leadership is not selling fairy tales, it is confronting challenges, and that is the leadership the British people will get from this Government,” he said.