Rishi Sunak is right man for the top job, says Scottish Tory chairman

The chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party said it is time to “focus on the people’s priority” as he insisted incoming prime minister Rishi Sunak is the “right man for the job”.

Craig Hoy was speaking ahead of Mr Sunak’s official appointment on Tuesday.

Mr Sunak won the Tory leadership contest on Monday without a vote being cast after his rivals Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson dropped out.

He will replace Liz Truss, who beat him in a leadership election in September but resigned as Prime Minister last week after only six weeks in the role.

Mr Hoy told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that there is “no point in going back over what happened in relation to the first leadership election”, and he feels Mr Sunak is “the right choice to be prime minister at this point in time”.

He said: “I think Rishi Sunak is the right man for the job.

“I think he is the right choice to be prime minister at this point in time. He had a very, very strong track record of dealing with the economic turmoil that we saw during the current pandemic.

Rishi Sunak to be appointed Prime Minister before building Cabinet

“He stepped in to protect one in three Scottish jobs. That was one million Scottish jobs. He made sure that we saw the economy through that crisis.

“Then as the energy crisis started to loom at large around about us, he stepped in to provide £1,650 for the most vulnerable households.”

It was put to Mr Hoy that the Conservative Party “took us on a flight of fancy” in the last seven weeks.

He replied: “There’s no point going back over what happened in relation to the first leadership election.

“Liz Truss resigned. She did so swiftly. We had a very swift election selection process yesterday, and that now means that as of today we can start to focus on the people’s priority.

“And the people’s priority is to make sure that we help Scottish households through the very challenging winter that lies ahead, and I’m absolutely certain that that’s what Rishi Sunak and his new government and his new cabinet will do.