LIZ Truss has travelled to Moray to meet with Douglas Ross ahead of tonight's hustings in Perth.

The Foreign Secretary toured the BenRiach distillery in the Scottish Tory leader's Moray constituency.

Mr Ross is refusing to say who he will back in the contest. His relationship with Boris Johnson was notoriously unhappy.

During the visit, Ms Truss rejected calls for short-term help with looming energy bill hikes, insisting that cutting taxes would be the best way to allow people to "keep more of their own money."

Speaking to the Press Association, Ms truss told reporters: “We’re still in the leadership contest at the moment. Now, my priority is reducing taxes so people can keep more of their own money at the same time as making sure we boost energy supply.

“It is wrong to just keep sticking plasters on this problem.

“What we actually need to do is make sure we are unleashing more energy, for example, from the North Sea.

“We’re investing in technologies like nuclear, and we’re finding more renewable energy as well.

“We need to solve this problem for the long term.”

She told broadcasters: “What’s very important is we get our economy growing. We are unleashing investment right across the United Kingdom.

“I’m here at a whisky distillery talking about how it’s important that we back industries like the whisky industry, we get more investment in. That’s why it’s important we keep taxes low.

“We unleash investment by changing the rules we have at the moment which rolled EU rules and we turbocharged growth right across our economy.

"That is the best way to deliver better wages, but also more jobs and more growth."

Both Ms Truss and rival, Rishi Sunak have faced calls in recent days to take urgent action to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

Yesterday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer set out his party's £29bn plan to keep bills low over the winter.

The proposals would see the energy price cap frozen at £1,971 for the next six months, meaning households would not “pay a penny more” on energy.

It would be paid for by extending the windfall tax on oil and gas giants and scrapping the £400 rebate on heating bills. 

Ms truss has suggested that he will scrap the levy on energy firms if she becomes Prime Minister. 

Her campaign received a boost on Tuesday, with 11 government whips coming out to back her.

While Mr Ross is remaining neutral in the contest, the majority of Tory MSPs are backing Ms Truss. 

She's also picking up converts. 

Jams Bundy, the Tory councillor for Falkirk North had thrown his weight behind Mr Sunak. However this morning he said he was switching to Ms Truss. 

He said Ms Truss's pledge to extend Parliamentary Privilege to Holyrood "has convinced me that she should be our next party leader & PM."

Whoever becomes the next leader will be keen to mend the relationship with the party in Scotland.

Mr Ross was one of the first senior Tories to call for Mr Johnson to resign over partygate though he later rescinded that call after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before later backing a motion of no confidence in the Old Etonian.

He was rubbished by supporters of the Prime Minister for his disloyalty, including Jacob Rees-Mogg who repeatedly dismissed him as a "lightweight."

Mr Rees-Mogg is now a prominent supporter of Ms Truss.

Mr Sunak was due to meet the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation in Stonehaven before travelling to Cluny Castle with local MP and supporter Andrew Bowie. He was not speaking to press ahead of the hustings.

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