A SCOTLAND Office minister has said he “wouldn’t make any predictions” about Liz Truss surviving as Prime Minister.

Lord Malcolm Offord, a millionaire Tory donor ennobled by Boris Johnson last year, admitted she had made “mistakes”, but said her vision of a low-tax, high growth UK was intact.

However he ducked a question about whether Ms Truss was still running the country, saying merely that she “remains the Prime Minister”.

Lord Offord was speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show shortly after new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was forced to insist the Prime Minister was still in charge of the country, despite him ripping up the tax-cutting plans on which she became Tory leader and PM.

On Wednesday, Ms Truss at PMQs said she would “absolutely” stick to her leadership campaign promise not to cut public spending. 

On Friday, she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor after their joint mini-budget crashed and burned with the City, U-turned over a promise not to increase corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent in the spring, and replaced Mr Kwarteng with Mr Hunt.

The former Foreign Secretary immediately dismantled Ms Truss’s plans, warning of more tax rises to come and spending cuts across every arm of government.

The dramatic change in direction has fuelled plotting by Tory MPs who believe Ms Truss is now wholly lacking in credibility and authority and needs to be replaced as soon as possible.

Lord Offord said Ms Truss’s “direction of travel” was unchanged, although the route had changed.

Asked who was running the country - the financial markets, Liz Truss or Mr Hunt - Lord Offord dodged the question, by simply asserting that Ms Truss had been chosen as PM.

He said: “Well, the Prime Minister is Liz Truss, and the Conservative party went through a six-week campaign of selecting her, and they selected on the basis of her growth agenda.

“That is the big policy and that is the direction of travel, okay?. 

“In terms of the implementation of that, the short-term implementation of that, as we said some mistakes were made and the words she used were ’too far and too fast’. 

“That has now been rectified by bringing in a new Chancellor.

“She remains the Prime Minister and she owns the vision of  a lower tax, high growth economy. That vision remains intact.

“We're talking about implementation of this, the speed of this and how we go about doing it, and that is now what the Chancellor needs to do on the 31st of October [when he is due to deliver his Medium-Term Financial Plan].... on a balanced budget basis.

“I believe that combination of a new chancellor, with the Prime Minister still owning the vision of what we're trying to achieve, the direction of travel we’re trying to go in, she needs time to deliver that and I think that's what we need to look forward to on the 31st of October.

Asked: “So we stick with her as Prime Minister for the long-term, the medium-term, the short-term, what?”

Lord Offord replied: “I wouldn’t make any predictions. I think we put in place a new Prime Minister for the medium term. 

“She has a plan that has been decided over six long weeks. It was done completely transparently and open and public. 

“The Conservative Party chose their leader and they chose that plan. 

 

“We're now into the detail of the execution of that. There's been some missteps on that - too far too fast. That has now been reset. 

“The reset button will be pressed by the Chancellor on the 31st of October, and we'll get a balanced budget and after that we’ll be able to reset and go forward.”

Asked if Mr Hunt was effectively running the country on his terms, Lord Offord said he saw no difference between Mr Hunt and the PM’s desire to grow the economy and invest in services.

“What we're talking about is how we go about doing it in the short-term and how we reset to take account of market stability, reaction from the markets, reaction from the public, and we have to take people with us, and that's the big lesson.”

Asked if the Tories had “a shred of credibility left”, Lord Offord sidestepped the question and answered by referring to the economy

He said: “I think the credibility comes from the fact that we go into this… with a pretty strong balance sheet, very low unemployment. 

“We've dealt with the energy crisis, probably the fastest and best of all the G7 countries, and now we're dealing with how we reset our economy to get growth into it. 

“So yes, there's been some mistakes made and we have to be candid about that.

“The chancellor has said above all things he wants to be an honest Chancellor,  andI think the public will understand that. And it's our job now to move forward on a stable basis and get a balanced budget.”