New PM, same problems – the day one challenges facing Truss

Liz Truss has done it – she has beaten her rival Rishi Sunak to become the next prime minister.

But now the hard work really starts, and the former foreign secretary won’t have long to get to grips with the big issues facing her from day one.

So what are the main challenges when Ms Truss takes office on Tuesday? And what does she plan to do about them?

Politics live: Truss will go bigger than expected on energy bills, say sources

It is the first thing on most people’s minds right now, not just those in the corridors of power.

Summer is over and as we approach the darker and colder nights of winter, the prospect of rising bills will soon become a stark reality.

Energy will be the main focus for Ms Truss after Ofgem’s announcement last month that the price cap would go up to £3,549 come October – an 80% rise.

She kept her cards close to her chest during the leadership contest and gave little to no detail of how she plans to tackle the problem, focusing instead on her desire to cut taxes and encourage growth in the economy.

But the new PM has definitely moved from her earlier condemnation of “handouts” – she repeatedly criticised them as “Gordon Brown economics” during the contest – promising to reveal a support package within her first week in office.

She has also refused to rule out a freeze on the price cap, which has been Labour’s central policy for several weeks, and rumours are abound that this could be the direction she takes.

Labour shadow justice secretary Steve Reed called the lack of detail from her so far “staggering”, telling Sky News: “Despite the fact that Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been fighting each other like rats in a sack all the way through the summer, neither of them has come up with a plan to deal with the energy crisis.”

“The only source of a plan we’ve had so far is the Labour Party’s fully costed plan to freeze energy prices so we can spare families from the eye-watering, terrifying £5,000 or £5,500 increase in bills that are anticipated by next April.”

As the pinch is felt in people’s pockets, the issue of pay has risen to the top of the agenda too.

A range of industries are calling for increases to their wages, with record high inflation leading to price hikes and pay packets not stretching as far as they used to.

The summer was dominated by rail workers taking industrial action over pay and conditions, organised by unions like the RMT and Aslef.

But they are far from the only sector, with barristers and postal workers out on the pickets, along with threats of action from teachers, nurses and doctors too, among others.

And some of the countries biggest unions are calling for the different sectors to co-ordinate their strikes to ensure they make the strongest impact.

Ms Truss seems to have little time for this, pledging to “crack down” on strikes.

She tweeted: “As prime minister, I will not let our country be held to ransom by militant trade unionists.”

During hustings, she told Tory members she would legislate to make sure there were legal minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure, which could restrict the action the likes of doctors, teachers and rail workers could take.

But Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, said unions would fight such a law, calling it “the biggest attack on trade union and civil rights since labour unions were legalised in 1871”.

It is not just pay troubling doctors and nurses, but increasing pressures on the health service as a whole.

Waiting lists for operations are still in the millions, while waiting times at emergency departments are getting longer and longer as ambulances queue up to get their patients inside.

Staffing levels have taken a massive hit since the pandemic struck, buildings are in disrepair, and morale is at a low ebb.

And this is before the annual winter pressures hit, with concerns about the impact of flu season and worries over whether COVID could make a comeback.

One of Ms Truss’ headline policies in her fight to get to Number 10 was scrapping the rise in National Insurance, brought in by Boris Johnson and his then-chancellor Mr Sunak to put more money into the NHS and social care.

She says she is “completely committed” to the £36bn in extra money it would raise to tackle the COVID backlog, but says this will be funded by general taxation rather than an NI increase.

During the hustings, she also said she would divert £13bn from NHS into social care, saying she worried too much of the cash pumped into the service goes towards “diktats” and layers of bureaucracy.

The PM did say she wanted to “empower the frontline”, however, and rumours are rife that she will appoint one of her closest allies, former work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey, to the post of health secretary to make it a key priority.

But she doesn’t have the faith of opposition parties, with Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, saying: “No public service would be safe with Liz Truss in charge.

“She simply can’t be trusted to protect an NHS she doesn’t believe in or doctors she doesn’t value.”

Alongside these impending issues, the world is facing a climate crisis.

Over the summer, fires broke out across the UK as record 40C heat fuelled dozens of blazes around the country.

The frightening scenes were reflected across Europe and almost half of the continent is living with a drought warning.

And if countries don’t make drastic changes, the planet will face even more destructive impacts that could become irreversible.

Ms Truss has promised to stick to the UK’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. But her other policies cast a shadow of doubt over whether it can be achieved.

For example, she has already pledged to cut the green levies on energy bills to help households with the cost of living crisis.

The levy makes up between 9% and 12% of bills, so would be welcomed by those struggling, but the cash goes towards paying for things like renewable energy projects or home insulation, and without them, the target is harder to meet.

She has also said she wants to reintroduce fracking, if local residents agree, to increase home grown energy stocks. But such a pledge could just damage her green credentials further.

Another impending challenge for Ms Truss is the issue of immigration.

It has dominated the Conservative discourse for many years, but the recent attempts by Mr Johnson and his government to fix it seem to have made little impact.

In April, he announced a new plan to send asylum seekers entering the UK illegally to Rwanda, saying it would deter people from making dangerous small boat crossings over the Channel.

But so far, legal challenges have prevented any deportations to Rwanda, and more than 20,000 people have already made the crossing so far this year.

Despite this, the new PM is in favour of the Rwanda scheme and even wants to take it further.

During the leadership race, she even said she would extend it to send asylum seekers to a wider range of countries, as well as ensure British laws “can’t be overruled by the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights)” in an attempt to stop further legal blocks on the scheme.

But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called the scheme a waste of money, adding: “The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years.

“It beggars belief that they claim to be the ones to sort things out when they have both failed for so long.”

Away from our own borders, another important focus for Ms Truss will be the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Since Russia invaded the country and brought war to Europe, the UK has supported the defence forces with training, equipment and weapons.

Six months down the line, the battle does not seem to be letting up, and all eyes will be on the new prime minister to see if she keeps up the level of support of her predecessor – which went into the billions.

Ms Truss promised in her campaign to ensure the UK remained “Ukraine’s greatest friend” and pledged to make Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky her first call after taking office.

She cast aside questions of the financial cost of the conflict, even with growing economic pressures at home, saying she “commits completely to ensuring [Russian President Vladimir] Putin fails in Ukraine and suffers a strategic defeat, and that Russia is constrained in the future”.

The sanctioning of Putin and Russia has been part of her role as foreign secretary, but she will have even more responsibility, and the pressure that comes with it, now she is in Downing Street.