FORMER environment secretary Theresa Villiers said Tory leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak would introduce additional measures to ease the cost of living crisis if he wins.

She told GB News: “He’s fighting an excellent campaign. He had a brilliant hustings last night. And he had a really strong hustings…a week or two ago.

“I’m talking to Conservative members every day, who are backing Rishi. It’s a tough fight but I strongly believe that Rishi has the right plan for our economy.

“We face difficult times ahead in this country, and he’s the right leader to get us through them.”

Asked about the cost of living crisis, she said: “The Government’s already implementing a £37 billion package to help people with energy costs and aspects of that are already arriving in people’s bank accounts but I fully accept as does Rishi that we will need to do more.

“That’s why he says that if he becomes Prime Minister, he would immediately suspend VAT on domestic energy bills and he recognises that further support is also going to be needed but I would emphasise that would provide the reassurance that you know, the measures already been delivered will involve a £1,200 amount of support for 8 million households.”

Asked if she could be more specific about additional support during an interview with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster on GB News, Ms Villiers said: “He’s already been specific in terms of those measures he signed off as Chancellor.

“At this stage it’s too early to come up with numbers, at the very least we need to hear from the regulator at the end of this month, in terms of what the cap is going to be.

“But yes, absolutely, we do need to move swiftly on this, which is why we’ve got the announcement on taking VAT off energy bills for a year.”

She said: “I just believe that Rishi has the more realistic approach to our economy. Mrs Thatcher back in the day, she was clear that when there is an inflation problem, you need to beat inflation before you can reduce taxes.

“We all in our party and the conservatives want to see taxes come down but Ritchie’s approach is to beat inflation first to grow the economy and then bring taxes down, which I think is the better plan and the one which is more likely to win us a general election.

Ms Villiers added: “You do need to tailor your support for households with energy bills in a way which doesn’t fuel inflation.

“There are real concerns about many billions of pounds worth of tax cuts, particularly those…which would provide far more benefit to high earners.

“I do want to see taxes come down, but I think we need to ensure that we don’t reduce taxes in such a way that might fuel borrowing and leave the bill for future generations and potentially fuel inflation.”