By Ben Kerrigan-
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said she was “ready to be prime minister from day one”, as she launched her campaign.
Truss is hoping to be only the third female prime minister in the Uk, and spoke of being driven by ambition and hard work
She is currently third behind Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak after the first round of voting by Tory MPs.
The contending MPs are waiting to get down to the final two contenders, who will then face a vote of Tory Party members.
The secret ballot which will see the candidate with the fewest votes eliminated, takes place between 11:30-13:30 BST, with a result expected at 15:00 BST.
More MP ballots will be held until there are only the final two, who will then face a vote by Tory Party members to decide who will be the next party leader and prime minister.
The first round of MP votes on Wednesday saw former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi knocked out of the contest.
Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat remain in the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, alongside the top three of Mr Sunak, Ms Mordaunt and Ms Truss.
A senior member of the Ms Truss’ campaign has urged backers of Ms Badenoch and Ms Braverman to “recognise the reality of the situation” and unite behind the foreign secretary.In a speech launching her campaign, Ms Truss pledged to move away from “business-as-usual economic management,” adding this had delivered “low growth for decades”.
She promised to reverse April’s National Insurance hike, reverse next year’s scheduled rise in corporation tax and set up “low tax zones” to help attract business.
She re-committed to Mr Johnson’s levelling up project to reduce regional inequalities “in a Conservative way”.
And in a bid to emphasise her experience in government, she said she had “consistently delivered” and shown she wouldn’t “give in to Whitehall”.
Ms Truss sought to stress her leadership credentials on Brexit and defence, but warned that the economy would “not get back on track overnight”.
She promised to get the country on an upwards trajectory by 2024 and added she would seek to treat debt taken on in response to the Covid pandemic as a one-off event, paying it off over a longer period of time.