Liz Truss news latest: Pension triple lock stays after Tory pressure on PM

The government’s plan to create a new body to run Britain’s railways has been delayed, the transport secretary has announced.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan said a planned transport bill that would legislate to set up Great British Railways (GBR) would not go ahead in this parliamentary session.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone reports:

If she fouls up at Prime Minister’s Questions, then she’s out; if not, then she just staggers on, limping on as a caretaker towards her inevitable demise, writes Sean O’Grady.

Read Sean’s full piece here:

Liz Truss has contradicted her new chancellor Jeremy Hunt and announced pensions will rise in line with soaring inflation – after suggestions the pledge would be dumped.

“I have been clear that we are protecting the triple lock on pensions,” the beleaguered prime minister told MPs during PMQs.

Our deputy politics editor Rob Merrick reports:

Truss says she is a “fighter not a quitter” and that she has acted in the “national interest” to ensure economic stability.

She repeats her argument about delivering on energy bills and NI.

She says she will deliver on disrupting the unions and that Starmer has “no plan” and has “no alternative”.

Starmer says the only mandate Truss has ever had is from her MPs.

“It was a mandate built on fantasy economics,” he adds. “And it ended in disaster.”

The country has got nothing to show for it, he adds. Her “economic credibility is gone”.

“Why is she still here?” Starmer asks, pointing out that Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked.

Truss points out that Starmer has not rejected any of the U-turns made by Hunt in recent days.

She claims Starmer is “refusing to condemn” the strikes.

“We’re on the side of working people, we’re going to legislate to keep our railways open…[he refuses to do anything],” she adds.

Starmer hits back saying, “she’s asking questions because we’re a government in waiting and they’re an opposition in waiting”.

He said there was no getting away from a situation where “millions” are facing rising mortgage costs.

She’s admitted its her fault, he adds.

“They put her there,” Starmer says gesturing to Conservative MPs behind Ms Truss. “They’re keeping her there…why on earth would anyone trust the Tories on the economy ever again?”

Truss sidesteps question, saying there needs to be “some reflection of the economy reality” from Labour.

She says the fact is that interest rates “are rising across the world” and that the economic conditions have “worsened”.

“We are being honest,” she adds. “We’re levelling with the public”.

She asks Starmer what he is going to do about train workers going on strike?

Starmer says the spending cuts are on the table “for one reason only – because they crashed the economy”.

He says working people are going to have to pay “£500 more in mortgage costs” per month.

“What’s the prime minister’s response, to say she’s sorry?”

Starmer pointed out that Truss had promised no spending cuts last week, before the chancellor reversed this.

“What’s the point of a prime minister whose promises don’t even last a week?” he asks.

Truss says that spending will go up next year and the year after.

She says the Labour Party has pledged “hundreds of billions of spending pledges none of which they’ve retracted.

PM says that the opposition needs to rethink its plans.