Truss tries to reassure on economic plan

British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday sought to reassure her party and the public, saying she needed to do more to "lay the groundwork" for an economic plan that has seen sterling fall to record lows and government borrowing costs soar.

Truss, who has been in office for less than a month, adopted a softer tone on the first day of the ruling Conservative Party's annual conference, saying it would be a difficult winter but that he would support the public during this period and beyond. But he stood by his "growth plan", a package of tax cut measures unveiled on September 23 that investors and economists criticized for forecasting billions of pounds of additional spending while offering few details on how it would be paid for in the short term. While Truss said it was the right plan, he suggested critics did not understand the depth of the UK's problems and said it needed to do more to explain them - an argument market traders and investors rejected last week as a reason for the fall in sterling and rise in borrowing costs. "I understand their concerns about what happened this week," he told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg program. "I stand by the package we announced and I stand by the fact that we announced it quickly because we had to act, but I accept that we should have prepared the ground better." Truss took office on September 6, but Queen Elizabeth died two days later and so the first two weeks of the new prime minister's term were largely a period of national mourning and politics virtually came to a standstill. After a massive sell-off, the pound recovered as Britain's central bank, the Bank of England, stepped in, but government borrowing costs remain markedly higher. Investors say the government needs to work hard to restore confidence. Follow Global Economic Developments on Social Media! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Facebook account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Instagram account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Twitter account!