Liz Truss has urged Rishi Sunak to be “bold” at stick to her tax cutting agenda, as she left Downing Street for the last time as prime minister.
Speaking outside No.10 before meeting King Charles to resign, Truss quoted Roman philosopher Seneca.
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare that they are difficult,” she said.
Truss was prime minister for not even two months, having taken over from Boris Johnson on September 6.
Her premiership imploded after her mini-Budget triggered chaos in the markets and tanked the Tory poll ratings.
But in her farewell speech she offered no apology and urged her successor to stick to her plan for “lower taxes” and focus on economic “growth”.
“From my time as prime minister I’m more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the challenges we face,” she said.
“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.”
Sunak will be appointed prime minister later this morning after travelling to the Palace.
He is due to make a statement on the steps of No.10 at 11.35am, before assembling his new cabinet.
Sunak has been urged to avoid Truss’s perceived error of appointing loyalists to key roles.
He will look to build a cabinet of “all the talents” that will see the political return of the “adults”, according to reports.
His team have been remaining tight-lipped about the possible make-up of the team.
But long-time backers such as Dominic Raab, the former justice secretary, Commons Treasury Committee chair Mel Stride and ex-chief whip Mark Harper have been tipped for big jobs.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who was brought in to steady Truss’s ailing government and has been working towards a highly-anticipated Halloween fiscal statement, is widely expected to keep the keys to No.11 to try to stabilise the jittery markets.
Penny Mordaunt, who bowed out of the leadership race, is expected to get some kind of promotion – with some speculating that she could replace James Cleverly as foreign secretary.
Sunak won the keys to Downing Street after Mordaunt failed to secure the support from Tory MPs needed to make it onto the ballot.
He told his party on Monday it must “unite or die” in the face of a “profound economic challenge”.
It marks a dramatic comeback for Sunak, who lost out to Truss in the previous contest.
Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP has demanded the incoming prime minister hold a general election to secure a mandate to govern.