Liz Truss latest news: Boris Johnson to give final speech as new PM ‘to freeze energy bills’

More banking hubs – which help to fill gaps in access to cash – will be rolled out in UK communities, it has been announced.

An additional 13 hubs will be created, bringing the total number planned to 25, according to ATM network Link and the Cash Action Group, which includes banking industry representatives and others.

Banking hubs operate in a similar way to bank branches, but their services are shared, with banks providing staff on rotation so that trained specialists from different banks are available on different days.

The 13 new hubs will be in locations including Brechin in Angus, Forres in Moray, Carluke in Lanarkshire, Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Axminster in Devon, Barton-upon-Humber in Lincolnshire, Lutterworth in Leicestershire, Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, Cheadle in Staffordshire, Belper in Derbyshire, Maryport in Cumbria and Hornsea in Yorkshire.

Additionally, the first banking hub under the scheme in Northern Ireland will open in Kilkeel in Newry.

Banks and building societies have asked Link to identify communities that need help and the locations have been selected as part of that work.

The first banking hubs were piloted last year in Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire and Rochford in Essex. The two hubs have already had approaching 60,000 customer visits and transactions worth £16 million have taken place since they opened.

Britons slowed their spending habits over the last month amid the looming spike in household energy bills, according to new figures.

Data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed that sales slowed significantly last month, as only price rises kept sales growth in positive territory amid tumbling trading volumes.

It came as separate figures from Barclaycard also showed that card spending slowed to its lowest levels for more than a year.

The BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor for August revealed that total sales grew by 1% over the month, compared with 3% over the same month last year.

It comes after 2.3% retail sales growth in July.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said that the decline came as clothing demand reduced as the summer came to a close.

“Retail sales growth slowed in August compared to the previous month as consumers reined in spending amidst the spiralling cost of living,” she said.

“While inflation in retail prices is lower than general inflation at over 10%, this still represents a significant drop in sales volumes.

“For the first time in recent months, clothing sales were sluggish as summer events ended, and parents held back on back-to-school spending.

“White goods and homeware remained hardest hit, but products such as air fryers and knitwear did get a boost as thrifty consumers prepare for soaring energy bills.”

Approximately 400,000 children will be eligible for an anti-poverty benefit increase from November as Nicola Sturgeon sets out a raft of cost-of-living actions in her Programme for Government.

The Scottish child payment is set to be increased to £25 per eligible child per week from November 14. The benefit will now also be open to all eligible under-16s.

The current payments of £20 a week currently help an estimated 104,000 youngsters under the age of six.

The First Minister will set out how the Scottish Government will help households and businesses cope with the cost emergency which she said “will cost lives”.

Speaking ahead of her statement to Parliament on Tuesday on the 2022/23 programme for government, Ms Sturgeon said the poverty-busting policy, which is not available anywhere else in the UK, is an important action to “mitigate the growing cost emergency”.

The payment doubled to £20 in April, resulting in a rise of 150% in less than eight months, she said.

“The Scottish child payment is unique to Scotland, the most ambitious child poverty reduction measure in the UK and an important action to mitigate the growing cost emergency,” she said.

There’s no job description for former prime ministers, except, perhaps, James Callaghan’s blunt injunction to ex-leaders: “Don’t speak to the captain; don’t spit on the deck.”

Boris Johnson, we may be sure, is just too temperamentally undisciplined to follow that advice.

Click here to read Sean O’Grady’s full view on the next steps for the soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister.

Liz Truss has won the Conservative leadership campaign. She will soon become the 15th individual (and only the third woman) whom the Queen has asked to form a government.

That, pretty much, is where the good news ends for Ms Truss – though everyone should wish her the best of luck for the sake of the country.

Her “mandate” amounts to the roughly 57 per cent of the Conservative membership that voted in the party’s internal election, or some 81,326 spectacularly unrepresentative activists, some resident abroad.

It is a rather lower majority than her predecessors achieved, or the campaign surveys suggested.

The party is split, and many openly bemoan the loss of Boris Johnson. There are jokes in poor taste about a leadership challenge to Ms Truss.

Click here to read The Independent’s full editorial as Britain wakes up to a new prime minister.

It is understood Ms Dorries was given the opportunity to carry on in Cabinet but had chosen instead to return to the backbenches.

It is expected that she will now be given a peerage in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list, triggering a by-election in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

A successful novelist who has sold more than 2.5 million copies, her departure from Government is expected to enable her to return to writing books.

During the leadership campaign, Ms Dorries was an outspoken critic of Rishi Sunak – in one controversial tweet likening him to Brutus stabbing Julius Caesar over the way he had turned on Mr Johnson,

As a minister she was involved in drawing up legislation to curb social media companies through the Online Safety Bill and led controversial moves to privatise Channel 4.

Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: “Many of us watched Liz Truss’s leadership campaign in horror as she demonstrated economic illiteracy by promising unfunded tax cuts, disparaged desperately needed help on rocketing energy prices as ‘handouts’, and launched ideological attacks on trade union members engaged in lawful industrial action to secure a fairer deal in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

“Such an attack on people protecting their incomes would clearly demonstrate the incoming prime minister has no understanding of the very real issues that face workers.”

Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “I hope Liz Truss reflects on the important role our members play in keeping government running, and shelves plans to cut 91,000 Civil Service jobs.

“She must realise cuts have consequences, and, if she comes for our hard-working members’ jobs and working conditions, she’ll face opposition every step of the way.”

Rail, Maritime and Transport union general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Liz Truss should act in the national interest and play a positive role in helping to settle the rail dispute.

“This means investment in the railway infrastructure, unshackling Network Rail and the rail companies so we can come to a negotiated settlement on job security, pay and working conditions.

“This would be in the best interests of the travelling public, the rail industry and railway workers.”

Nadine Dorries is to stand down as Culture Secretary and return to the Conservative backbenches, sources close to Ms Dorries have said.

Ms Dorries had backed Liz Truss during the campaign and was previously a strong supporter of Boris Johnson.

She is the second major departure today following Priti Patel announcing she was stepping down from her role as home secretary.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Liz Truss will not solve the cost-of-living crisis by attacking trade unions and making it even easier for bad bosses to do as they please.

“At a time when we face a national pay cut, the prime minister should be taking on the corporate profiteers that are pushing up prices, not workers fighting to stand still.

“Attempts to place effective industrial action outside of the law are a direct assault on the democratic rights of the British people and will be met with fierce, prolonged resistance.”

Transport Salaried Staffs Association general secretary Manuel Cortes said the new Conservative Party leader had “offered nothing” to deal with the economic crisis during a leadership contest which had been “a charade about which candidate is the best Thatcherite”.

He said: “Liz Truss comes into Downing Street with millions of people in our country desperate for help in the face of an escalating Tory cost-of-living crisis.

“Truss has offered nothing to date which suggests she, or her party, have a clue about how to deal with soaring energy prices, inflation and much more, including giving our members a pay rise which stops them becoming poorer.

“At a time when the British people need serious government, rather than parlour games, this has been a wasted summer of ineptitude and inaction.

Union leaders have been scathing about how long it has taken to elect a new prime minister and made it clear that Liz Truss’s top priority must be tackling the cost-of-living crisis.

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Leaving the country rudderless all summer at a time of great emergency has been nothing short of a national disgrace.

“The Government has got to get back to governing immediately. Liz Truss must do what should’ve happened months ago and deliver help to the millions unable to cope with their crushing bills.

“Many family finances may never recover without an urgent assistance plan. Tackling the cost-of-living crisis must be the prime minister’s number one priority, not wasting precious time attacking unions for trying to help working people through the pain.

“Hard on the heels of an energy lifeline must be an above-inflation wage rise for the public services currently haemorrhaging staff to better-paying parts of the economy. If there’s no-one left to run the hospitals, schools, town halls, police stations and care homes communities rely on, we’ll all be done for.

“Cutting taxes only assists the better-off. It won’t help the hospital porters, teaching assistants, care staff or other low-paid workers one bit.”