Liz Truss in fresh peril as senior Tory MPs round on her over economy

The remarks failed to calm the markets, with the price of 20-year UK bonds hitting new lows on Wednesday afternoon after the Bank of England insisted its £65bn package of support for the bond market would end on Friday.

On the day of her first parliamentary showdown since the Conservative party conference, MPs renewed serious conversations about the prospect of replacing her. The prime minister has pledged to step up engagement with restive MPs with a series of round tables over the next week.

No 10 has publicly denied there is any new examination of the tax cuts announced in the mini-budget, including tweaks to the timing of the income tax cut or a reevaluation of the cancelled corporation tax rise.

The former chancellor Sajid Javid and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Mel Stride, voiced fears about the current approach and suggested the Treasury would need to look again at the measures announced by the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, last month.

Stride told the chief secretary to the Treasury, Chris Philp, in the House of Commons that he thought the government would have to abandon more planned tax cuts, going further than the U-turn on the abolition of the 45% top rate of tax which Truss has already announced.

Javid said in a speech at the Legatum Institute that the government wanted to cut taxes more and spend more on the energy price guarantee than Truss had promised in her leadership campaign.

Another member of the Treasury select committee Kevin Hollinrake said he also thought there should be a fresh look at the tax cuts, including potentially staggering their introduction.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said in a report earlier this week that Truss would only be able to keep her tax cuts and have a credible deficit reduction plan if she announced spending cuts worth £60bn by 2026-27.

One former minister suggested Truss would stick to the public spending envelope for now, meaning that departmental cuts would be restricted to those required by inflation.

She could then try to reassure the markets by announcing that deep cuts would take place once the next three-year spending round begins in 2025-26.