His sacking makes Kwarteng Britain's shortest serving chancellor since 1970, and his successor would be the UK's fourth finance minister in as many months as the nation grapples with a cost-of-living crisis.

Just hours after Truss went on television to defend the policy, Kwarteng released a statement saying he accepted it had become a distraction from wider efforts to help households through a difficult winter.

This comes after Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a string of tax cuts in a fiscal statement that was not accompanied by OBR forecasts and which sent British financial markets into turmoil.

Britain's finance minister Kwasi scrapped the country's top rate of income tax and for the first time put a price tag on the spending plans of Prime Minister Liz Truss, who wants to double Britain's rate of economic growth.