Liz Truss 'considered cutting NHS cancer care' to pay for tax cuts, new book claims

28 August 2024, 11:03 | Updated: 28 August 2024, 12:24

Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer care in the wake of her disastrous mini-budget, a new book has claimed.

The former PM suggested the policy in a bid to pay for massive tax cuts, Sir Anthony Seldon writes in a biography of Ms Truss.

The book ‘Truss at 10: How Not to Be a Prime Minister’ casts a brutal eye over the Conservative PM’s time in Downing Street.

Ms Truss was forced to resign after just 49 days in office after crashing the British economy with a series of cataclysmic economic policies.

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And in a desperate attempt to restore market confidence, Ms Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng allegedly considered cutting NHS support for cancer patients.

One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts” including to cancer care.

Shocked, Boyd reportedly responded: “Is she being serious?”

“She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” other aides told the author.

Ms Truss denies the accusation, with a spokesperson saying it is “completely untrue that she ever considered it.”

“I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this,” Kwasi Kwarteng said.

One person close to the conversation claims the suggestion didn’t come from Truss herself but the Treasury, as they tried to explain to the doomed PM what it would take to pay for her economic plans.

On Truss Seldon concludes: “The [Conservative] party’s long-standing reputation for economic competence and cool-headed pragmatism had been severely tested since 2016, but the final thread was snapped by Liz Truss.”