Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has pledged to return the Conservatives to “being the party of sound money”, if elected.
The former migration minister outlined his economic plans in a speech this morning in which he admitted the Conservatives “abandoned fiscal responsibility in the mini-Budget.”
Jenrick told an audience of journalists and MPs at a Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) organised speech: “The market took fright and working people suffered.
“That was a damaging episode for our party, and under my leadership, we will return to being the party of sound money.
“We will of course remain the party of low taxes.”
Jenrick, who is vying with rival Kemi Badenoch – the former business and trade secretary – to take over as Tory leader from Rishi Sunak, praised the “Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s”.
He criticised Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government for giving the UK the “wrong diagnosis giving rise to the wrong solutions for our economy”.
The Tories, he said, “dragged Britain back from the brink in the 1980s” and added: “We did it again in the 2010s, restoring the public finances and giving markets confidence.”
But he stressed that despite Brexit “we didn’t do enough to take full advantage of the newfound opportunities that were in our hands”.
Jenrick argued in favour of reforms to the NHS and public services, of reducing civil service numbers back to “pre-Brexit levels by cutting 100,000 jobs”, and reducing the welfare bill.
“If we can get the disability and incapacity caseload back to its 2019 level, we can take roughly £12bn off the working age benefits bill,” he said. “That would equate to almost 2p off the basic rate of income tax.”
He also made the case for limiting the numbers of university students, arguing that “one in five graduates end up financially worse off than if they had never gone to university at all”.
Housing in the UK, he added, was a “national disgrace”, and the Conservatives should call for more home building in “our world class cities” and to “zone urban areas for densification”.
On energy, Jenrick cited South Korea which he said “builds nuclear power stations at a fraction of the price of Hinckley Point C,” and said Britain should “build low cost power plants based on their specifications – not reinventing the wheel”.
He added: “No more excuses about spiralling energy bills, just delivering cheap, secure energy that the British people and our economy actually need and deserve.
“It’s a simple agenda rather than a big state that fails. We need a small state that works, rather than a big state that fails.”
Jenrick and Badenoch are set to go head-to-head at a GB News hosted ‘leadership event’ on Thursday evening, with members currently deciding who to cast their votes for.
The winner will be announced on 2 November, just two days after Labour’s first Budget on 30 October, and two days ahead of the US presidential election on 4 November.