Liz Truss is to become the UK's new prime minister after beating former finance minister Rishi Sunak in the ruling Conservative Party's leadership contest.
She will take over from Boris Johnson, who resigned as party leader in July following a huge revolt against him from his own members of parliament. She formally becomes prime minister on 6 September, after travelling to meet the Queen in Scotland.
Truss — foreign minister in Johnson's administration — repeatedly set out her "belief in low taxation" as a key principle during the leadership contest. She reiterated strong opposition to windfall taxes on oil and gas firms, although it is unclear whether she plans to lift the levy on North Sea producers that was put in place by the previous administration earlier this year and that is helping fund the government's existing package of support for consumer energy bills.
"One thing I absolutely don't support is a windfall tax… It's all about bashing business and it sends the wrong message to international investors and to the public," she said during a hustings event on 11 August. "I don't think profit is a dirty word and the fact it's become a dirty word in our society is a massive problem… of course, the energy giants, if they're in an oligopoly, should be held to account and I would make sure they're rigorously held to account."
Truss was unswerving in her support for the UK's North Sea oil and gas industry during the leadership contest. She said she planned to address soaring energy bills by first cutting taxes, including placing a temporary moratorium on the green energy levy, and then tackling supply.
"This is an energy supply problem and we need to deal with the root cause," she said. "We need to make sure we're using our reserves in the North Sea and incentivising companies to do that. We need to make sure we're fracking in parts of the country where there is local support for that taking place."
Late on in the contest, Truss appeared to soften her position on providing direct financial support for consumers to cope with high energy prices, promising a plan to "deal with the issue of energy bills and of long-term supply" within one week if she won the leadership contest. "We need to help people, we need to help businesses," she said on 4 September. But unlike Sunak, she firmly ruled out energy rationing.
Keeping net zero
Beyond oil and gas, Truss said she is keen for the UK to ramp up all energy output, including nuclear, renewables, tidal power and hydrogen.
"I would want to move as fast as possible with all of those solutions because energy security is a key priority as well as keeping prices low for consumers," she said.
"I will keep the net zero pledge," Truss confirmed, referring to the UK's legally-binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. "I want to achieve net zero but I want to do it in a way that harnesses capital, that harnesses investment," she said. This is in line with her predecessor's approach, which aimed to provide enough certainty from targeted financial support and clear regulatory framework to leverage significant private-sector spend on the energy transition.
Truss did not originally back the UK's withdrawal from the EU but she confirmed she will remove EU environmental laws and is keen to look at UK-specific laws. She also suggested she will legislate to prevent strikes. She focused on rail, promising to legislate for essential railway services to avoid them being "disrupted by militant trade unions". The UK has seen industrial action across several sectors in recent months as workers demand higher pay to keep up with rising inflation.
