Former prime minister Liz Truss refuses to apologise for economic chaos after mini-budget

  • Liz Truss stopped short of apologising to the millions facing higher interest rates

Former prime minister Liz Truss has refused to apologise for the economic turmoil sparked by her ill-fated mini-budget last autumn - but admitted she would have done things differently "knowing what happened".

In her first TV interview since stepping down from Number 10 as the country's shortest-serving PM, Ms Truss said told ITV News Anglia she wished she had been "given more time" by her parliamentary colleagues and the financial markets.

But she stopped short of apologising to people hit financially by the fall-out of the budget she and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng presented in September, which sent the pound plummeting and interest rates soaring.

"The issue was caused primarily by problems in the bond market... which I didn't know about," she said.

"So I am prepared to take responsibility for things I knew about and can foresee, but not things I don't know about."

She added: "In retrospect we could have communicated better but there were serious issues we didn't know about, in particular how fragile the financial market was."

The mini budget in September ultimately led to the downfall of both Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Credit: PA

Speaking to ITV News Anglia, the South West Norfolk MP ruled out a second run for the Conservative leadership but said she remained committed to the priorities of cutting tax and pursuing growth.

"I would have like more support from the financial markets, I would have liked more support from MPs in the House of Commons, but the fact is I didn't have that support to continue with the policies," she said.

"The policies I set out, I believe are the right policies for the long term. Did we get everything right? No, we didn't. Would I have liked more time? Yes, I would.

"But I'm a realist and when it was clear that I didn't have that level of support, I wasn't going to leave the country in the lurch and stay in office. And that is why I stood down."

  • Ms Truss said government should have acted sooner to repair the crumbling hospital which serves her constituents

Her resignation had given her more time for constituency matters, she said, but she was also still concerned about international issues such as the threat of Russia and China.

Ms Truss was speaking on a visit to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, near her Norfolk constituency, where the crumbling building is currently held up by 3,400 temporary props.

While prime minister, Ms Truss refused to make any commitments to the hospital, and now admits that was a mistake.

"We should have done more earlier, there's no doubt about that," she said.

"It's in a bad state, but the best time to do it [replace the hospital] is now."

Ms Truss was recently reselected as the Conservative candidate for South West Norfolk.

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