Lewis: 'never the case' that Truss intended to
cut public sector pay
2h ago
09.35
Lewis: 'never the case' that Truss intended to cut
public sector pay
Good
morning. The Conservative former Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, has
attempted to defend Liz Truss by suggesting it was “never the case” that the
Tory leadership contender had planned to cut public sector pay.
Lewis, who
is backing Truss’s leadership bid, said “there was never any risk to the pay of
the brilliant public sector” after the foreign secretary suffered a humiliating
setback when she was forced into a U-turn on civil service pay after a backlash
from within her own party.
Asked if
her campaign was abandoning a flagship policy to slash £8.8bn from public
sector pay outside London, he told Times Radio:
You do see
during leadership campaigns obviously people putting out ideas - we’ve seen
Rishi Sunak’s team have put out eight or nine different things that they’ve
changed around.
The reality
of yesterday is, what Liz was outlining was part of a package of dealing with
Whitehall waste. We all want to see that dealt with, it’s part of a programme
of work actually to get the civil service - it’s grown by about 91,000 just in
the last few years, back down to levels where we’re using taxpayers’ money
efficiently and effectively.
He added:
What Liz
was looking at yesterday and what the campaign was looking at is what you do in
new contracts as people come in, but look, she made it very clear yesterday,
we’re not taking this forward, this isn’t something that’s going to happen and
we value obviously all of the work - and there was never any risk to the pay of
the brilliant public sector who’ve done so well through the Covid period and
the challenges that we’ve seen over the last couple of years.
Lewis’s
comments came as Truss and her rival, Rishi Sunak, prepare to face party
members in a third set of Tory leadership hustings later today. A new YouGov
poll suggests that almost nine in 10 Tory members have made up their mind about
who to support, with 60% plumping for Truss and just 26% for Sunak despite a
difficult week for Truss. Tonight’s event in Cardiff marks the first time
either has visited Wales since the contest began.
Conservative
members who were due to receive their postal ballot papers have been informed
that the papers will arrive later than scheduled following security concerns
and could arrive as late as 11 August.
An email on
Tuesday evening said the papers, due to be sent out from Monday to about
160,000 Tory members, said:
Your ballot
is now on the way – but it will arrive with you a little later than we
originally said.
Please do
not worry. This is because we have taken some time to add some additional
security to our ballot process, which has delayed us slightly.
The
announcement of the leadership contest result is due to take place on 5
September, which is expected to remain the same despite the delay.
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