Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has joined the race to replace Boris Johnson. Ms Truss pledged to start cutting taxes “from day one”.
Many of the 11 leadership hopefuls looking to become the Tory party leader have set out competing tax plans as a core element of their proposals.
The 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs that organises contests will meet on Monday to decide the timetable and rules of the leadership race.
The two-stage process will see Conservative MPs whittle down the candidates to two, through voting rounds, before party members decide the winner.
Ms Truss, 46, indicated that she would echo her rivals in planning to slash corporation tax, reverse the National Insurance hike and reform business rates.
She told the paper it “isn’t right to be putting up taxes now” and if elected she would take “immediate action” to assist with living costs.
“Colleagues know I mean what I say and only make promises I can keep. I can be trusted to deliver”, she said.
The foreign secretary said she would “fight the election as a Conservative and govern as a Conservative”.
Another leadership contender, Tom Tugendhat, echoed Ms Truss’s calls to lower taxes, and said he would be “looking to lower taxes across every aspect of society”.
Mr Tugendhat said he was “one of a few Conservative MPs who didn’t vote for the National Insurance rise”, which he called a “tax on jobs”.
Speaking on a radio programme, he said the UK needs to be “going for growth” – which he insisted can only be achieved by taking “the brakes off the economy” and boosting the private sector.
Mr Tugendhat also pledged to “deliver the benefits” of Brexit, in part by “changing the way we invest around the country” and “opening up trade agreements”.
The newly appointed Foreign Office Minister Rehman Chishti also declared his candidacy on Sunday, with the 43-year-old speaking about the importance of lower taxes, a small state and a big society.
