Liz Truss news latest: James Cleverly insists replacing prime minister is a ‘disastrously bad idea’

Billions of pounds awarded as part of Covid employment support schemes were lost in fraud and error, a public spending watchdog has warned.

The National Audit Office has criticised the government for not doing more to prevent mistakes and fraudulent claims when rolling out the furlough scheme and the self-employment income support scheme, warning that billions of pounds could remain unrecovered.

In total, according to the latest report into the schemes by the National Audit Office, £4.5 billion – or nearly 4.6 per cent of the total cost of the government’s £96.9 billion emergency Covid-19 support – was claimed in error or in fraud.

But even that estimate is subject to “considerable uncertainty”, auditors say, with the figures ranging from between £3.2 billion to £6.3 billion.

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Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has defended Kwasi Kwarteng’s decision to scrap the planned rise in corporation tax in his controversial mini-budget.

Mr Cleverly told Sky News: “I think that it is absolutely right that we want to invest in businesses. It is absolutely right that we help them stay competitive, we help them stay afloat.

“We have got to make sure we can compete internationally with the other places businesses can choose to locate. We have got to make sure we are tax-competitive.”

Mr Cleverly rejected an attack by former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith – who described Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey as “stupid” – although he said the Government did not always agree with the decisions the Bank took.

“Of course he is not stupid. You don’t get to be Governor of the Bank of England if you are stupid. The job of the Bank of England is to intervene,” he said.

“He is doing his job. It doesn’t mean we always agree with everything the Bank of England Governor says or does.”

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned Tory MPs that any attempt to replace Liz Truss as Prime Minister would be a “disastrously bad idea”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have got to recognise that we do need to bring certainty to the markets.

“I think changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea politically and also economically. We are absolutely going to stay focused on growing the economy.”

Liz Truss is facing open revolt from Conservative MPs demanding further U-turns on her tax giveaway mini-Budget, after she ruled out spending cuts to balance the nation’s books.

Increasingly fractious Tories made clear the prime minister should reverse or defer her decision to scrap a rise in corporation tax scheduled for 2023, at a cost of £18.7bn.

The calls came after The Independent revealed Downing Street staff have been going through chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s 23 September statement line by line following the receipt of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) initial assessment of its impact.

Liz Truss is reportedly facing a rebellion from her own business department over solar farms.

Ms Truss wants to ban solar power from about 41 per cent of England’s land, or 58 per cent of farmland, The Guardian reported.

However business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg reportedly believes that the plan is “unconservative”. He does not like the idea of telling farmers what they can or cannot do with their land, The Guardian reported.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has been on the radio waves this morning defending Liz Truss’s economic growth plan despite rumours that the govenrment could be considering a new U-turn on corporation tax.

Mr Cleverly has said that Ms Truss deserves support to push through her economic growth plan.

He told LBC Radio: “We have got a tough winter ahead, we completely get that. The Prime Minister has got a growth plan.

“She made it clear what she was going to do. I think we should give her the support, give the Chancellor the support, to deliver on the plan she has put in place.

“You can’t be critical of our low growth rate and also critical of the interventions to stimulate growth. You have got to pick one or the other, and Liz has picked growth.”

In the chamber, writes John Rentoul, Truss found herself undermined by her own worst enemy – herself.

Keir Starmer finds the theatrical element of Prime Minister’s Questions frustrating. He is no good at it. He prefers to conduct the session as if it were a meeting at the Crown Prosecution Service, where he goes through the points he wants to sort out one by one, reading from a script.

When the prime minister responded by not answering the question, or accusing Labour of opposing the government’s plan to subsidise people’s gas and electricity bills, Starmer was confused and annoyed. He accused her of making “nonsense” attacks, and pressed ahead with his next question.

It was only after she gave a non-answer to that one that he pointed out that it was Labour that advocated freezing energy prices first, before the government adopted the policy.

Starmer didn’t “win” the exchanges, because Truss stood up straight and sounded as if she believed what she was saying. But Labour didn’t need a theatrical performance to take the prime minister’s case apart. Events in the markets were doing a good job of that from the outside, and in the chamber, Truss found herself undermined by her own worst enemy: herself.

Read his full analysis here:

Foreign secretary James Cleverly has said that Britain wanted to have an even stronger trading relationship with India after reports that remarks by a fellow minister about Indian immigrants could put a future deal in doubt.

Asked about the comments made by interior minister Suella Braverman about Indian migrants in Britain and the possible impact, Cleverly said: “We do want to have an even stronger, and it’s strong already, but an even stronger trading, relationship with India.”

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly did not confirm that the government would go ahead with a plan to keep corporation tax at its current level when he was asked on Thursday if the government would reverse course on its economic policies.

Asked if the government would reverse its announcement last month to keep corporation tax at 19% and not raise it as had been previously planned, he told Sky News the finance minister would soon set out the full fiscal plan and that it was right to support businesses so they can remain competitive.

“The chancellor will come to the despatch box,” he said. “I think it’s absolutely right that we’ve made it clear that we want to invest in businesses.”