Liz Truss’s radical tax-cutting plan was “clearly” not the right approach, according to Grant Shapps, who briefly served in her short-lived government.
In a return to the political fray, Ms Truss wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that her economic agenda was never given a “realistic chance”.
Business Secretary Mr Shapps said he agreed with Ms Truss on wanting lower taxes – but inflation must fall first.
“You can’t just go straight to those tax cuts,” he said.
In her 4,000-word essay, Ms Truss stood by her plans to boost economic growth, arguing they were brought down by “the left-wing economic establishment”.
But she acknowledged she was not “blameless” for the unravelling of the mini-budget.
They are the first public comments the former PM has made on her resignation in October of last year.
Ms Truss resigned after she and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng introduced a £45bn package of tax cuts – including a cut to the top rate of income tax – which panicked the markets and alienated Tory MPs.
Mr Shapps was asked on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show whether Ms Truss’s approach had been the right one.
“Clearly it wasn’t,” he said.
He admitted that the UK’s tax burden was currently “very high”, and said he agreed with Ms Truss that Conservatives must be “making the good arguments” that a lower-tax economy can be successful in the long term. (BBC)