‘Nothing off the table’ on reversing Liz Truss tax plan: New UK finance minister

Jeremy Hunt: The measure would save £5 billion ($6 billion), according to a report in the Sunday Times.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said “nothing is off the table” when asked if he will abandon more of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s tax cut plans.

Jeremy Hunt: British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt speaks during an interview. (Reuters)

Asked if he is going to announce another u-turn on Truss’s mini-budget by delaying a year Truss’s plan to cut the basic rate of income tax, Hunt declined to rule out the move. The measure would save £5 billion ($6 billion), according to a report in the Sunday Times. The newspaper said the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast a shortfall of as much as £72 billion in the public finances by 2027.

“I’m not taking anything off the table,” Hunt told the BBC on Sunday. “There is one thing we can do and that is what I am going to do which is to show the markets, the world, indeed people watching at home, that we can properly account for every penny of our tax and spending plans.”

Hunt said he has no desire to succeed Truss if she is ousted by the ruling Conservative Party.