Tory leadership debates live: Liz Truss promises tax breaks as candidates branded ‘travelling circus’

Liz Truss has floated another expensive tax cut if she wins the Tory leadership race, despite criticism that her economic plans are “a fairytale”.

The foreign secretary says she would explore giving parents a tax break of up to £2,500 to help them take time out of work to look after children or other family members.

Rishi Sunak scored a major hit on the right-wing candidate in Friday’s live TV debate when he called for “honesty” over tax reductions until soaring inflation has been tamed.

Boris Johnson’s planned 5% pay rise for millions of public sector workers is insufficient and will not be found “remotely acceptable” by nurses, according to a union.

A Cabinet minister has told the Financial Times the government will agree to pay rises averaging about 5 per cent for the 2.5 million staff in the sector, who include nurses, teachers, police, civil servants and members of the armed forces.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has previously set out the case for a pay rise of 5 per cent above the level of retail price index inflation, which is currently over 11 per cent.

Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss has pledged that families could receive tax breaks of up to £2,500, as reported by the Daily Mail.

Ms Truss has promised a radical overhaul of the taxation system if she gets into Downing Street that would also include ditching green levies on energy bills and reversing an increase to national insurance.

The foreign secretary also said she would axe the planned increase in corporation tax, which is set to rise from 19 to 25 per cent in 2023.

Tory leadership race favourite Penny Mordaunt is under fire for her support of homeopathy from critics of the use of alternative medicine.

The former defence secretary has frequently advocated the practice – the use of natural substances to help the body heal itself – according to an analysis of her parliamentary record and past comments.

Ms Mordaunt was one of 16 supporters of a motion in the House of Commons sharply criticising the British Medical Association for withdrawing NHS support for homeopathy, in June 2010.

The Cabinet Office Minister Kit Malthouse is to chair a meeting of the Government’s Cobra civil contingencies committee to discuss the impending heatwave, a Government spokesman said.

It will be the second Cobra meeting Mr Malthouse has led on the issue.

More voters are deserting the Conservative party because of inaction on cost of living and rising bills than animosity to Boris Johnson, a new poll has found.

The findings, seen by The Independent, come after Tory MPs forced the prime minister out of office, believing he had become an electoral liability.

But a survey by ComRes of wavering Tories suggests that it is rising energy bills more than Mr Johnson himself who is most to blame – though he is also a significant drag on support.

Rishi Sunak’s rivals are getting away with incredible tax-and-spend plans, writes John Rentoul.

They say a week is a long time in politics.

It certainly must have felt that way for Rishi Sunak this week. The frontrunner to be the next prime minister had had an understandably busy few days before he stood before Tory MPs in a quiet committee room off a Westminster corridor on Tuesday night.

But, for a moment, he appeared to forget that he was no longer the chancellor, referring in passing to his “department”. And yet it was his decision to resign as chancellor a week before that kicked off a series of events that saw Boris Johnson ousted from power and left Mr Sunak in pole position to replace him.

To be fair to Mr Sunak, the race to become the next Conservative leader was also accompanied by temperatures rarely seen in Westminster, writes our Whitehall Editor Kate Devlin.

On Monday, a student on work experience fainted in the basement of the Churchill War Rooms museum, listening to cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi set out his pitch to become the next prime minister. Over the next few days, Mr Zahawi and a number of his rivals would also fall like flies.