• Liz Truss’s legacy: Dossier reveals damage done in 50 days of failure
• Sunak speech fails to reassure public worried about winter ahead
• Reshuffle: Stop “revolving door” payouts to Conservative ministers

Liz Truss’s legacy: Dossier reveals damage done in 50 days of failure

• 932,000 people seeing their mortgage rise
• 176,000 more people on NHS waiting lists
• 365,000 hours of sewage discharges

The Liberal Democrats have published a dossier on Liz Truss’ legacy, showing the damage done to the country during her 50-day premiership.

The analysis shows over 930,000 people saw their mortgage rise due to the Government’s botched mini-budget, the number of people on NHS waiting lists grew by 170,000 and 6.2 million people waited over two weeks for a doctor’s appointment.

A shambolic Home Office oversaw 27,000 unsolved burglaries, 492,000 more victims of fraud and 1,100 police officers leaving the force. The Government also oversaw sewage being dumped a staggering 51,000 times into rivers and waterways across the country, for a total of 365,000 hours.

Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper MP said

From soaring mortgage rates to NHS services on the brink, the past 50 days of Conservative chaos have done irreparable damage to our country.

The Conservatives chose to put Liz Truss in Downing Street without giving the public a say, and cheered her Budget which trashed the economy and the public finances.

Now we have another out of touch Prime Minister handpicked by Conservative MPs, with no plan to deal with this mess.

The country cannot afford any more months of Conservative chaos and incompetence, while the huge challenges facing the country go unaddressed. We need a general election, we need the Conservatives out of power and we need real change.

Sunak speech fails to reassure public worried about winter ahead

Responding to Rishi Sunak’s statement outside Downing Street today, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

Rishi Sunak’s refusal to call a general election shows the Conservative Party does not trust the British people. The public will be rightly furious that they have been denied a say, while Conservative MPs get to decide who runs our country.

We didn’t hear any details from Rishi Sunak on his plans to fix the damage to our economy and the NHS caused by years of Conservative chaos and incompetence.

Sunak must confirm that benefits and pensions will be up-rated in line with inflation and that there will be no spending cuts to our crucial public services. It’s the very least he can do to reassure struggling families and pensioners worried sick about the winter ahead.

It can’t be right that the public is kept in the dark while the Prime Minister makes promises and dishes out cabinet posts to Conservative colleagues behind closed doors.

Reshuffle: Stop “revolving door” payouts to Conservative ministers

The Liberal Democrats have called on sacked and newly reappointed Conservative ministers to forego their redundancy payments, following the reshuffle announced by Rishi Sunak today.

Conservative turmoil has led to huge numbers of former ministers being able to claim payouts, with the two reshuffles carried out since July potentially costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Ministers who were sacked just months ago but have now been reappointed are still able to claim thousands of pounds each in redundancy pay, as long as they have been out of a ministerial post for at least three weeks.

For example Dominic Raab, who was sacked by Liz Truss in September but reappointed as Justice Secretary today, would be eligible to receive £16,876 despite only being out of a ministerial job for seven weeks. Steve Barclay, who was reappointed as Health Secretary after being sacked in September, would also be entitled to the same full redundancy payout.

The Liberal Democrats have called the arrangement a “farce” and said this “revolving door bonus” should be returned to the Treasury to help struggling families with the cost of living.

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office Spokesperson, Christine Jardine said:

It beggars belief that while families are struggling to pay their bills, many retiring Conservative ministers are set to receive thousands of pounds, some of them after just a few weeks in the job.

The Conservatives have trashed the economy, and now expect the British people to endure even more hardship to clean up their mess. What staggering unfairness, for the Ministers who got us into this financial mess to be rewarded with taxpayers’ cash.

Perhaps most egregious of all is the revolving door bonus for ministers who got a payout just months ago and have now already been reappointed. It is a complete farce.

These payouts should be stopped, and the money should be spent on helping the many people who are struggling under Conservative misrule.