Rishi Sunak under pressure revive ‘Conservative values’

Rishi Sunak will come under mounting pressure from Tory MPs today to revive ‘Conservative values’ (Image: Getty) Former Prime Minister Liz Truss is spearheading calls on her successor to do more to boost housebuilding and help businesses. She will urge the Conservative leadership to position itself as the ‘party of business again’ by slashing corporation tax. Ms Truss will also use an appearance at the Tory conference in Manchester to demand the de facto fracking ban to be lifted. She is one of a number of senior right-wing Tories and Red Wall MPs demanding a return to traditional values. Her speech at a so-called growth rally will see Ms Truss argue ‘we need to make the case for Conservatism again’ and ‘do more to revive Conservative values and show that they deliver’. It is the latest public intervention by the short-lived prime minister, whose time in office was brought to an abrupt end almost one-year ago. She will say: ‘We’ve got to get better at translating ‘growth’ into what it means in day-to-day terms for people, businesses and families. ‘It means a better standard of living so that people have more disposable income to go on holiday, buy a new car or support their children. ‘If we axe the tax, cut bills and build houses, we would make life better and easier for the British public, and give them the freedom to thrive. ‘There is no reason we cannot go into the next election with a platform that is proudly Conservative. Let’s stop taxing and banning things, and start producing and building things.’ Truss is spearheading calls on her successor to do more to boost housebuilding and help businesses (Image: Getty) Ms Truss will add her voice to calls for drastic reform of housebuilding rules, taking aim too at new protection policies. She will say: ‘There are too many politicians who say we need to build more homes and then baulk at removing one line of regulation. Newt protection or bat bridge anyone? ‘If we really want houses to be built, we’ve got to incentivise it. We’ve got to give local communities the freedom to create housebuilding zones with no red tape through the offer of lower taxes. ‘We should reduce taxes in these areas enough so that we are building something like half a million homes a year. ‘This is what Conservatives are supposed to believe in: cutting red tape, lower taxes and trusting that markets will find the solutions we all want.’ Ms Truss will also put pressure on the Government over fracking, after Rishi Sunak swiftly moved to re-introduce a moratorium on the practice after the collapse of her premiership. In recent months, the former Tory leader has defended her record in office and her ‘pro-growth’ vision for the party. She will be joined at the rally by Boris Johnson loyalists former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and ex-home secretary Dame Priti Patel. Smith will urge Mr Sunak this week to be radical and “speak the language” of working people (Image: Getty) In making her call for corporation tax to be lowered back to 19 per cent, taking it down from its current 25 per cent rate, Ms Truss will stress the need to ‘unleash British business’. She will say: ‘We can’t stand idly by while companies like AstraZeneca move operations abroad because of our huge tax burden, or small businesses shut up shop because they are drowning in red tape. ‘We should be hungry to attract the world’s best businesses and encouraging people to start businesses here at home. We must not normalise the raiding of businesses’ coffers. ‘Ahead of this year’s Autumn Statement, we must make the Conservative Party the party of business once again, by getting corporation tax back down to 19 per cent. ‘This is how we make Britain grow again. It is free businesses that will get us there, not the Treasury, not the Government and not the state. ‘Only free businesses can get Britain out of its 25-year economic stagnation. Only free businesses can create the economic growth and tax revenues on which our public services rely.’ It comes after experts said the Tories will have presided over, during the time between the 2019 election and the next general election, the biggest set of tax rises since at least the Second World War. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said taxes will have risen to around 37 per cent of national income, equivalent to around £3,500 more per household, even if it will not be shared equally. In a speech to the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) last night Dame Priti said the Tories election manifesto must offer voters ‘full-blooded Conservatism’. ‘A Conservative Manifesto that has our values of Freedom, Enterprise and Opportunity at its heart,’ the former Home Secretary said. ‘A Manifesto that gives families and businesses the economic freedoms that they care by cutting taxes, reducing red tape and making the most of the freedoms we now have outside of the European Union. ‘Our next Manifesto must commit to rolling back the frontiers of the State,’ she said. And she will ramp up the rhetoric today’s Growth Rally, demanding the party must ‘make the case for growth, economic freedom, and low taxes’. ‘Our Manifesto must rediscover our tax cutting, job creating, enterprise supporting values.’ Otherwise, she will warn, Britain will sleepwalk into a ‘deeper, darker and more sinister version of socialism under Starmer and Labour’. Other demands from Tory MPs include pulling Britain out of the European human rights treaty so the Government can finally stop the boats, tax cuts, banning gender ideology in schools and slashing net migration. Leading Brexiteers, such as Sir Iain Duncan Smith and influential newer MPs such as Miriam Cates, will urge Mr Sunak this week to be radical and “speak the language” of working people. New polling  today shows that British voters support withdrawing from the ECHR if it meant that the UK could more readily deport illegal migrants. Some 54 per cent of voters said they support replacing it with new British laws that protect rights like free speech but enable the Government to promptly deport illegal migrants.   The Whitestone Insight poll was commissioned by the powerful New Conservatives group of MPs.