It has been a huge honour to be Prime Minister of this great country, in particular, to lead the nation in mourning the death of Her Late Majesty The Queen after 70 years of service, and welcoming the accession of His Majesty King Charles III.
In just a short period, this Government has acted urgently and decisively on the side of hardworking families and businesses. We reversed the National Insurance increase. We helped millions of households with their energy bills and helped thousands of businesses avoid bankruptcy. We are taking back our energy independence so we are never again beholden to global market fluctuations or malign foreign powers.
From my time as Prime Minister, I am more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the challenges that we face. As the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote: “It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it’s because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
We simply cannot afford to be a low-growth country where the government takes up an increasing share of our national wealth and where there are huge divides between different parts of our country.
We need to take advantage of our Brexit freedoms to do things differently. This means delivering more freedom for our own citizens and restoring power to democratic institutions. It means lower taxes, so people can keep more of the money they earn. And it means delivering growth that will lead to more job security, higher wages and greater opportunities for our children and grandchildren.