Liz Truss said "we need to be bold and confront challenges" during her final speech outside 10 Downing Street.
After seven chaotic weeks as Prime Minister, Ms Truss spoke on Tuesday of the need to praise tax cuts and celebrate reversing the national insurance hike imposed by Mr Sunak when he was chancellor.
She warned that the nation continues to “battle through a storm” but insisted she believes that “brighter days lie ahead”.
She then travelled to Buckingham Palace to formally tender her resignation to the King after just 49 days in office, making her the shortest-serving Prime Minister in history.
Liz Truss said "we need to be bold and confront challenges" during her final speech outside 10 Downing Street
Victoria Jones
Speaking from Downing Street, Ms Truss said: “From my time as Prime Minister I’m more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the challenges we face.”
“We simply cannot afford to be a low-growth country where the Government takes up an increasing share of our national wealth and where there are huge divides between different parts of our country. We need to take advantage of our Brexit freedoms to do things differently.”
Ending her speech outside Downing Street, Ms Truss said: “We continue to battle through a storm but I believe in Britain, I believe in the British people and I know that brighter days lie ahead.”
Her final speech as Prime Minister lasted three minutes and seven seconds, less than half the length of the farewell speech by her predecessor Boris Johnson, which ran for seven minutes and 33 seconds.
It was also around a minute shorter than the speech she made in Downing Street on becoming Prime Minister, which lasted four minutes and four seconds.
Members of staff and Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey stood outside Number 11 Downing Street as the watched on during Ms Truss’s speech.
Before making the speech, Ms Truss told her Cabinet they had “secured some significant achievements” during her short spell as Prime Minister, according to Downing Street.
After her final meeting in charge, No 10 said: “The Prime Minister opened Cabinet by thanking ministers for their support.
“She said that in the short time the Government had been in place they had secured some significant achievements.
“The Prime Minister concluded by saying her time in the role had been a huge privilege and that her successor will have her support as they now build on the important steps already taken by Cabinet to support the country.”
Ms Truss will be replaced as PM by Mr Sunak, who was confirmed as the new Tory Party leader on Monday.
Liz Truss
Gareth Fuller
