British Prime Minister Liz Truss has acknowledged mistakes over the recent mini budget but said she was standing by her tax-cutting plan as she refused to rule out public spending cuts.

Ms Truss acknowledged that she could have done more to prepare the ground for Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's financial statement, which spooked the markets, sent the pound plummeting and forced a £65 billion intervention by the Bank of England to restore order.

Ms Truss said the mini-budget's most controversial measure, the abolition of the 45% tax rate on earnings over £50,000, was not discussed with the cabinet but was a decision made by the chancellor.

As the Conservative party conference gets under way in Birmingham, Ms Truss faced a difficult task in reassuring the markets and Conservative members unnerved by the market turbulence and opinion poll crash suffered since she took office.

"I do want to say to people I understand their worries about what has happened this week," she told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

"I do stand by the package we announced and I stand by the fact we announced it quickly, because we had to act.

"But I do accept we should have laid the ground better... I have learnt from that and I will make sure that in future we do a better job of laying the ground."


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Former cabinet minister Michael Gove said he is "profoundly" concerned about Ms Truss's tax cuts as he suggested he could vote against the plans.

Speaking on the same programme, he criticised using borrowing to pay for slashing taxes as being "not Conservative".

Mr Gove welcomed the prime minister acknowledging she had made mistakes around the mini-budget but said she displayed an "inadequate realisation" of the scale of the problem.

He said he is "profoundly" concerned that Chancellor Kwarteng is paying for £45 billion of tax cuts through increased borrowing.

He said cutting the 45% income tax rate for the highest earners was a "display of the wrong values".

And he even suggested he could vote against the plans in the House of Commons, as Conservative critics eye a possible rebellion.

"I don't believe it's right," he said of the budget.