LAST UPDATE | 19 Oct 2022

LIZ TRUSS IS facing a humiliating clash with Keir Starmer today, having been forced to scrap her entire economic strategy and with her leadership in peril.

She has squared off against the Labour leader in Prime Minister’s Questions for the first time since her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ripped up her plan for tax cuts and increased public borrowing in a bid to reassure markets in the wake of the mini-budget turmoil.

It has come amid more gloomy economic news, with economists predicting that Office for National Statistics data will reveal inflation returned to double-figures in September.

Truss faces disquiet from Tory MPs over plans for public spending cuts across all departments, after Hunt warned of decisions of “eye-watering difficulty” to plug the Government’s multibillion-pound financial black hole.

He is considering postponing by a year the cap on the sum people pay for care in old age, The Times reported.

Treasury sources did not deny the policy could be delayed, pointing to the Chancellor’s statement that “nothing is off the table”.

An admission from Downing Street that Truss could ditch the key manifesto commitment to increase state pensions in line with inflation sparked a swift backlash.

Her official spokesperson said she is “not making any commitments on individual policy areas” ahead of the Chancellor’s fiscal plan on October 31.

Tory backbencher Maria Caulfield said she “will not be voting to end the pensions triple lock”, with former minister Steve Double joining her in saying: “Nor me.”

Stephen Crabb, the former work and pensions secretary, told the Telegraph it is “not the time to consider abandoning the triple lock” and that “maintaining the value of the state pension during the cost-of-living crisis is essential”.

Divisive Fracking vote

Tory MPs have been told today that a Labour vote in the Commons seeking to ban fracking is being treated as a “confidence motion” in Liz Truss’s embattled government.

Conservative deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker warned his MPs that this afternoon’s vote is a “100% hard” three-line whip.

The dozens of Conservatives who oppose fracking face being kicked out of the parliamentary party if they do not back the government’s controversial end to the moratorium in England.

Labour sources said the Tories had walked into their trap and are preparing online adverts to target every MP who backs giving the controversial shale gas extraction the go ahead.

If passed, the opposition day debate motion would guarantee Commons time for a Bill banning fracking once and for all.

Whittaker wrote to Tory MPs, saying: “This is not a motion on fracking. This is a confidence motion in the Government.

“We cannot, under any circumstances, let the Labour Party take control of the order paper and put through their own legislation and whatever other bits of legislation they desire.

“We are voting NO and I reiterate, this is a hard 3 line whip with all slips withdrawn.”

Defence

Truss has also reiterated her pledge to boost defence spending after the armed forces minister publicly threatened to resign if it was broken.

She said she stood by her promise in a meeting with Tory MPs from the European Research Group (ERG) – one in a series of gatherings aimed at shoring up her ailing position.

ERG chairman Mark Francois described the meeting yesterday evening as “positive”, and said: “We were delighted to hear her make an unequivocal commitment to spending 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade.”

Truss also told the group that she found axing her tax-slashing programme “painful” and did it “because she had to”, according to her deputy press secretary.

After Truss later hosted a reception for a selection of Tory backbenchers in Downing Street, one of the attendees said her position remains “precarious”.

Clacton MP Giles Watling told BBC Newsnight: “Of course it’s precarious, she knows that, we all know that.”

Former Cabinet minister Michael Gove said it was a matter of time before Truss is ousted as Prime Minister as he warned Britons to expect “a hell of a lot of pain in the next two months”.

But Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland warned colleagues considering removing Truss to “be careful what you wish for”.

“The more the Conservative Party change leaders, the stronger the case for a general election becomes,” the Cabinet minister told BBC Newsnight.

“I say to my colleagues, be careful what you wish for. An early election serves nobody any good, not least the Conservative Party and certainly not the country.”