Britain’s new leader Liz Truss will make her debut appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, facing off against Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer over the dispatch box in the House of Commons for the first time.
Ms Truss spent Tuesday meeting the Queen at Balmoral in Scotland before returning to Westminster to give her first address to the nation outside 10 Downing Street, attempting to reassure the public that the UK will weather the current economic storm, before settling down to finalise her Cabinet.
Her headline appointments last night included Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor, Suella Braverman as home secretary, Therese Coffey as health secretary and deputy PM, James Cleverly as foreign secretary and, Jacob Rees-Mogg as business secretary.
All of the above are regarded as Truss loyalists and the reshuffle marked an almost complete clearout of ministers regarded as allies of her leadership rival Rishi Sunak, including Dominic Raab, Grant Shapps, Steve Barclay and George Eustice, an approach that risks further fracturing a deeply divided Conservative Party battered and bruised by Boris Johnson’s numerous scandals and eight weeks of often toxic campaigning.
Ms Truss also put in her first calls as leader to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US president Joe Biden on Tuesday, the latter warning her not to tamper with the Northern Ireland Protocol and risk jeopardising the peace across the Irish Sea.
She can expect an initially cordial reception from Sir Keir in the Commons before being grilled about how precisely she plans to tackle the cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills this winter, the single issue of most concern to a public frightened of being driven into fuel poverty and forced to choose between heating and eating by exorbitant household expenses.
Ofgem announced late last month that its energy price cap, the maximum amount utility companies can charge customers on standard tariffs, would rocket by 80 per cent to £3,549 from 1 October and is expected to rise even further in future quarters, a crisis Mr Johnson declined to address in his final weeks in office, preferring to sun himself in Slovenia and Greece and pose for photo opportunities with the military.
Ms Truss is widely expected to unveil a package of measures to address the situation later this week, despite having expressed her distaste for “handouts” during an interview with The Financial Times as a candidate and centering her campaign on delivering tax cuts instead.
The first PMQs since the summer recess kicks off at 12pm today and will be covered live on BBC Two, the BBC News channel, Sky News and Parliament TV and on The Independent website via Indy TV and our dedicated liveblog, bringing you all the key updates and latest breaking news stories as they happen.
