British Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Sunday that she could have done a better job “laying the ground” for her package of unfunded tax cuts, but insisted she would push on with an economic plan that has caused turmoil on financial markets and weakened the country's public finances.
Truss acknowledged that the UK faces “a very turbulent and stormy time,” but said her policies would lead to a “high-growth, low-tax economy” in the longer term.
The comments are unlikely to calm Truss' Conservative Party, which opens its four-day annual conference on Sunday in the central England city of Birmingham amid plunging poll ratings and growing public discontent.
Truss took office less than a month ago, promising to radically reshape Britain's economy to end years of sluggish growth.
But the government's September 23 announcement of a stimulus package that includes 45 billion pounds (USD 50 billion) in tax cuts, to be paid for by government borrowing, sent the pound tumbling to a record low against the dollar.
The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prop up the bond market, and fears that the bank will soon hike interest rates caused mortgage lenders to withdraw their cheapest deals, causing turmoil for home buyers.
“I have learned from that,” Truss told the BBC. “I will make sure in future we do a better job of laying the ground.”
Truss stuck to her insistence that Britain's economic problems were part of a global spike in inflation and energy prices spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In a bid to calm the market turmoil, Truss and her finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, have said they will set out a medium-term fiscal plan on November 23, alongside an economic forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
Many economists, and many Conservatives, say that means weeks more economic turmoil are ahead. Michael Gove, who served as a senior minister in previous Conservative governments, said the announcement “will have to be brought forward” and some parts of the economic package will have to be dropped.
Gove said there was “an inadequate realisation at the top of government about the scale of change required.”