Monday 1 August 2022 05:36 PM Liz Truss vows to halt Nanny State ban on buy-one-get-one-free deals stop taxes ... trends now

Leadership hopeful Liz Truss will stop planned 'nanny state taxes' on unhealthy foods if she becomes the next prime minister.

The foreign secretary said that Brits 'don’t want the government telling them what to eat', and wants to halt plans that would ban buy-one-get-one-free offers on junk food.

She would also not introduce more taxes on high salt, sugar and fat products.

'There is definitely enough of that… Those taxes are over,' she told The Mail+. 

The 47-year-old added that people want to see the Government acting on road and rail services, mobile phone networks and broadband, as well as reducing NHS wait lists and making it easier to get a GP appointment. 

Earlier today, Rishi Sunak denied panicking after offering a delayed 4p cut to income tax if he becomes Prime Minister.

The former chancellor made the offer of a 'radical but realistic' cut as he prepared to face Liz Truss in the second Tory leadership hustings tonight, with consensus that he is lagging far behind.

He faces a race against time to catch up with the Foreign Secretary, who is ahead in the polls, as postal voting papers go out this morning.

The former chancellor said he is pledging the 'biggest income tax cut' since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

But the move was last night branded a 'U-turn' by a Liz Truss campaign source, who said: 'People need tax cuts in seven weeks not seven years.'

But Mr Sunak again declined to back her plans for immediate tax cuts, which he has ruled out on the grounds they will make soaring inflation even worse.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that his plan was 'entirely consistent' with his campaign and vowing immediate cuts would 'make the situation far worse and endanger people's mortgages'. 

'As chancellor I was very keen to make sure that I started cutting taxes and what I've announced today builds on that and that's because I believe in rewarding work and the best way for the Government to signal that is to cut people's income tax,' he said.

'And in this Parliament as Chancellor I already said we're going to cut income tax for the first time in almost 15 years and as prime minister I want to go further than that and cut income tax at the basic rate by a fifth to 16p, but I want to do that in a way that's responsible.

'I want to make sure that we can pay for it, I want to make sure that we can do it alongside growing the economy, so that's the vision that I have and I think it's right that people know where I want to take the economy, but it's entirely different to doing things right now that would make the situation far worse and endanger people's mortgages which is not something I want to do.'

It came as Ms Truss won the backing of another Cabinet big-hitter. Mr Sunak;'s replacement as Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, threw his weight behind her. 

Writing in the Times he praised Ms Truss's 'booster' economic approach while implying that his 'doomster' predecessor in the Treasury subscribed to the 'status quo' and a 'stale economic orthodoxy'.

Mr Sunak's bid for the premiership was given a boost by the endorsement of Damian Green, the chair of the One Nation group of Conservative MPs, who said he trusted the former chancellor to 'unify the party' and 'conjure up a solution' to crises.