Flynn demands Sunak apologise for Truss's time in office during latest round of PMQs
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn used today’s session of Prime Minister’s Questions to ask Rishi Sunak whether he would apologise for his predecessor Liz Truss’s time in office.
Following exchanges between Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer that focused on the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the UK, Flynn noted that Truss said in an interview this week that she did not regret her short time in office and asked Sunak whether he did.
“Thirty billion wiped off the UK economy, pension funds brought to the brink of collapse, the pound reaching parity with the dollar, and interest rates for mortgage holders right across these isle soaring,” Flynn said.
To laughs from the house, Sunak noted that he is “grateful to all my predecessors for the contribution that they make to public life” and that he had said on his “first day in office” that mistakes had been made.
Sunak went on to claim that with “the pound at a multi-month high and borrowing costs restored back to where they should be” his government is “delivering in government and […] as well to the people of Scotland”.
Angus MP Dave Doogan went on to ask the Prime Minister whether he would scrap the “fiscally illiterate” Electricity Generator Levy, which he claimed “will choke off billions from future investments in renewable energy projects, the kind of projects that my constituency excels at delivering”.
The levy, which was introduced at the beginning of January, is a 45 per cent tax on the extraordinary revenues of low-carbon electricity generators such as renewable and biomass sources that are connected to a national grid or local distribution network.
Sunak defended the levy, noting that it is “right to recover excess profits” made by energy companies after prices rose on the back of supply issues caused by the war in Ukraine.
He said that money should be “given back to the country in the form of support with their energy bills” and noted that “what is economically damaging for Scotland” is the SNP’s refusal to support the North Sea oil and gas industry, something he said the UK Government is “proud” to do.
During his exchanges with Starmer, Sunak was asked by the Labour leader whether he agreed that Russian president Vladimir Putin should be tried for war crimes in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Sunak said it is "absolutely right that we must hold those to account for the horrific crimes that they have committed" in Ukraine, adding that he had discussed the matter with Zelensky this morning and is "hopeful that we will see the first indictments very shortly".
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