LIZ Truss will stand by her Chancellor after the duo were forced into an embarrassing U-turn to abolish the top rate of income tax for the super-rich in England.

After Kwasi Kwarteng confirmed his plan to axed the 45 per cent rate hours before the Conservative party conference began, Downing Street said the Prime Minister continues to have confidence in Mr Kwarteng.

His humiliating U-turn comes to avert a Tory rebellion over their widely criticised growth strategy that risked failed to get the support needed to pass thourgh Parliament.

The Chancellor acknowledged that their desire to borrow billions to axe the 45% rate on earnings over £150,000 had become a “terrible distraction” amid widespread criticism.

Hours before he had been due to tell the Conservative Party conference they must “stay the course” on the plans, he issued a statement saying: “We are not proceeding with the abolition of the 45p tax rate.”

“We get it, and we have listened,” he added, in language copied in a tweet from the Prime Minister less than 24 hours after she said she remained absolutely committed to the cut.

The U-turn is a massive blow to their authority, coming a little over a week after the tax cut was announced in the mini-budget and just a month into Ms Truss’s premiership.

Mr Kwarteng said he had “not at all” considered resigning despite scrapping a key part of the financial plans he set out on September 23.

Asked if Ms Truss has confidence in her Chancellor, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “Yes.”

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said the reversal of the policy that would have cost £2 billion a year was only a “rounding error in the context of public finances”.

With around £43 billion of unfunded tax cuts remaining, Mr Johnson warned: “The Chancellor still has a lot of work to do if he is to display a credible commitment to fiscal sustainability.

“Unless he also U-turns on some of his other, much larger tax announcements, he will have no option but to consider cuts to public spending: to social security, investment projects, or public services.”

The chances of a Commons revolt diminished, with former Cabinet minister Michael Gove suggesting he could now support the package and fellow potential rebel Grant Shapps welcoming the U-turn.

Asked if he would now vote for the rest of the package, Mr Gove told Times Radio: “Well yeah I think so on the basis of everything that I know.”

Mr Shapps, a former transport secretary and a renowned strategist, told BBC Breakfast: “I’m very pleased to see him acknowledging that they understood it was the wrong move and fixing that problem.”

The Chancellor declined to directly apologise to the nation for the financial turmoil and rising mortgage rates and to Tory MPs who had been warned they could be kicked out of the parliamentary party for voting against the tax plans.

Instead he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There’s humility and contrition and I’m happy to own it.”

Mr Kwarteng suggested he had told Ms Truss they needed to back down amid signs of a growing rebellion from Conservative MPs.

“The conversation about the 45p rate was this terrible distraction really from what was a very, very strong plan and I’m very pleased that we’ve decided not to proceed with that because it was drowning out the elements of an excellent plan,” he told BBC Breakfast.

Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng were to make a joint visit linked to the Tory conference on Monday but that was abandoned during the chaos.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called for them to reverse “their whole economic, discredited trickle-down strategy” as she said the U-turn had come “too late for the families who will pay higher mortgages and higher prices for years to come”.