Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss' set for Darlington hustings debate

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will come up against each other in another hustings showdown in front of Conservative party members as the pair visit the region for the first time on their UK tour.

Darlington will once again host the leadership debate, as it did in 2019 between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, at 7pm.

It comes as Richmond MP Rishi Sunak has recently come under fire for a speech he gave to party members last month, where he said he had been working to divert funding from “deprived urban areas” towards more prosperous towns.

The former chancellor bragged that he had started changing public funding formulas to ensure more prosperous towns receive “the funding they deserve”.

Rishi Sunak during a hustings event in Eastbourne, as part of the campaign to be leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister. Picture: PA

Read more: Rishi Sunak's Levelling Up credentials called into question

The New Statesman magazine, which obtained video revealing Mr Sunak’s remarks, said they were made to grassroots Tories in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on July 29.

Yet despite the former chancellor’s controversial claim both him and Truss have been criticised for a lack of commitment to the government’s ambition to level up left-behind areas of the UK.

However, both candidates insist they are fully behind the flagship policy and were found to be the only two leadership candidates to have signed up to Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen’s five-point Levelling Up pledge.

The pair’s pledges of funding and future ambitions for the region are sure to be raised in questioning at Tuesday night’s debate with many northern tories still undecided over who to back in the ballot.

Liz Truss has declared on the campaign trail that she is “completely committed” to building Northern Powerhouse Rail and wants “really fantastic rail services” in the North. But voters in the north will expect more pledges for one of the UK’s most deprived regions.  

In a bid to win over more Tory voters, Liz Truss yesterday pledged to cut taxes “immediately” if she wins the race for No 10, a plan condemned by rival Rishi Sunak as insufficient to help the most vulnerable amid the worsening cost-of-living crisis.

Ms Truss said she would use a September emergency budget to reverse the national insurance rate rise brought in by Mr Sunak when he was chancellor.

She would seek to implement the change within days, rather than wait until April in line with usual Treasury rules, it is understood.

Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss (centre right) at a hustings event at the Pavilion conference centre at Elland Road in Leeds. Picture: PA

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The two candidates continue to clash over their plans to help families with spiralling bills after the Bank of England warned that the UK would fall into the longest recession since the financial crisis, with inflation set to soar to more than 13 per cent.

And Mr Sunak contrasted his “clear-eyed realism” with the “starry-eyed boosterism” of his Tory leadership rival.

He said: “It’s simply wrong to rule out further direct support at this time as Liz Truss has done, and what’s more, her tax proposals are not going to help very significantly people like pensioners or those on low incomes who are exactly the kind of families that are going to need help.”

There are growing calls for the new premier to urgently increase the amount of support available to low-income households, with a new report commissioned by former prime minister Gordon Brown suggesting Government help has failed to address their needs.

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