Liz Truss considered cutting cancer care to fund tax cuts-book

Liz Truss considered cutting cancer care on the NHS in a desperate attempt to find savings to pay for the tax cuts in her botched "minibudget", according to a new book about her time in office.

- Kiran Stacey

The book, Truss at 10: How Not to Be Prime Minister, is a 330-page long, largely excoriating account of her 45 days in Downing Street by the historian Anthony Seldon.

The claims about Truss's economic policy are among the most dramatic in a book that also discusses her fractious relationships with some of her fellow Conservative MPs.

The book reports that, as Truss's mini-budget unravelled around her in September 2022, her policy director, Jamie Hope, and economic adviser, Shabbir Merali, huddled in Downing Street and discussed how the cuts she was contemplating could not be delivered.

The book says: "At that point, they were joined by fellow special adviser Alex Boyd, who was told that Truss and [Kwasi] Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts.