She flies 500 miles to Balmoral to be handed the keys to No 10 by the monarch before addressing the nation from Downing Street with a promise to cut household bills. Politics Hub Live Updates: Older Tory voters ‘walked away’ from new PM
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The day began with outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivering his farewell speech outside Downing Street. He and Ms Truss will then fly to Aberdeen on separate planes for their meetings with the monarch. Mr Johnson will get there first at 11.20am. and will formally hand in his resignation to the Queen. Once gone, his successor will be invited to her first private audience with the monarch. She will arrive at Balmoral around 12.10pm, when Britain’s next prime minister will be appointed and asked to form a government. After half an hour with the Queen, Mrs. Truss is expected to return to London. There she will give her first speech as prime minister at around 4pm. She will be greeted by the cabinet secretary at the door of Number 10 and will be patted down by staff before going into the cabinet room to receive security and intelligence briefings from civil servants. The nuclear codes will be handed over to her and she will write “letters of last resort” to the commanders of submarines carrying Trident nuclear missiles with instructions on what to do if the government is wiped out in a nuclear attack. Her emergency package to tackle the cost of living crisis is expected to include a freeze on energy bills for homes and businesses until at least January next year – and possibly until 2024. This would mean that for a typical household, energy bills would freeze by just under £2,000. The initial cost to taxpayers would be £40bn – paid for by more government borrowing. Over the past 24 hours, Truss allies have been locked in talks with energy bosses hammering out details of the price freeze, which if it lasts for two years could ultimately cost £100 billion. Government ministers are expected to claim the new prime minister’s plan is more generous than Labour’s proposed price freeze, but she is expected to reject their request for a windfall tax. Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 2:27 Backbench Boris: What will the outgoing PM do now? Who will be in the cabinet? Major cabinet posts have long been settled and will be filled by Ms Truss’s closest allies, including Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor, James Cleverly as foreign secretary and Therese Coffey appointed as health secretary. After Priti Patel resigned as Home Secretary, she is expected to be replaced by Shwela Braverman. Culture secretary and Boris Johnson cheerleader Nadine Dorries is expected to follow Ms Patel in resigning. But on policy matters, tackling the cost of living crisis is the new prime minister’s most urgent priority. In her speech after being named Tory leader, she promised to tackle people’s energy bills. Household energy bills are currently capped at £1,971 – rising to £3,549 in October. The price cap is set to rise again in January, when bills are expected to top £5,000. However, under the new prime minister’s price freeze plan, the government will intervene directly in the wholesale energy market, subsidizing the cost of natural gas bought from electricity producers and suppliers. That would mean taxpayers bear the risk of rising wholesale gas prices while subsidizing energy costs for hard-pressed households and businesses now fearing bankruptcy. Read more:Beth Rigby Analysis: New PM already faces critical few weeksEven Sweden’s PM got Liz Truss wrong What does Westminster think of Liz Truss’s win? The plan will be outlined as early as Thursday Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 1:42 What will be in the in-tray of the new PM? Following the new prime minister’s promise of help on the steps of No 10, full details are expected from either Ms Truss or her new chancellor Ms Kwarteng as early as this Thursday. Her Downing Street address on her return from Balmoral will also include pledges for tax cuts and moves to tackle the crisis facing the NHS. The Allies describe its strategy as a “shock and awe” approach. In addition to her political initiatives, the new prime minister faces the task of uniting her bitterly divided party. After her 57%-43% victory over Rishi Sunak, many Tory MPs are urging her to heal the wounds of the leadership contest. Click to subscribe to Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts Sunak supporter and former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers told Sky News she would now support Mrs Truss’s policies, such as the National Insurance cut that was fiercely attacked by the former chancellor. However, Ms Villiers warned: “It will be very important to ensure that whatever tax decisions are made do not affect inflation or add too much to borrowing.” On energy bills, he said: “There is a case for some broad-based support, targeting it at people on low incomes.” John Penrose, who resigned from his government post over Johnson’s partygate behaviour, said Mrs Truss had a “clear win” but added: “We’ll have to wait and see if she succeeds, but she said right things.” And on energy bills, the treasurer of the 1922 Commission, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, told Sky News: “I wouldn’t give a very big package to everybody, because that just piles on our already enormous debt and some will have to be paid back period of time. .”
