London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Tom Scholar, permanent secretary to the Treasury, sacked by Liz Truss

Tom Scholar, permanent secretary to the Treasury, sacked by Liz Truss

Government likely to seek replacement amenable to its plans of economic growth through tax cuts

Liz Truss has underlined her apparent intention to rip up recent economic policies by removing Tom Scholar as the most senior civil servant in the Treasury, despite warnings that his experience could prove vital this winter.

Before becoming prime minister, Truss railed repeatedly against what she called “Treasury orthodoxy”, notably the predictions that her plan to make large and unfunded cut taxes could raise inflation and increase interest rates.

It is understood that Scholar, who worked closely with David Cameron and Gordon Brown before taking the top Treasury job in 2016, was told he would be going on Tuesday after Kwasi Kwarteng was appointed at Truss’s chancellor.

The news was confirmed on Thursday with a brief announcement from the Treasury. It said: “The chancellor has asked the cabinet secretary to begin the recruitment process for a new permanent secretary to the Treasury to succeed Tom Scholar.”

Beth Russell, the director general of tax and welfare, and Cat Little, the director general of public spending, will lead the department as acting permanent secretaries in the meantime.

Scholar said Kwarteng had decided it was time for “new leadership”. He wished the department “all the best for the times ahead”, adding he would be “cheering on from the sidelines”.

It appears likely that Kwarteng and Truss will be seeking a top official more amenable to their plan to try and increase economic growth by aggressively cutting taxes, with the intention that higher growth will then boost government coffers.

This has prompted scepticism among economists, with the perception that a similar view might be held among officials in the Treasury.

The departure of Scholar will leave Whitehall without a highly experienced voice who had worked with Cameron as his principal adviser on the European Union.

When he took over at the Treasury, he replaced Nicholas Macpherson, who had spent 11 years in the job, under three chancellors.

In a tweet, Macpherson called Scholar “the best civil servant of his generation”, adding: “Sacking him makes no sense. His experience would have been invaluable in the coming months as government policy places massive upward pressure on the cost of funding. As Gordon Brown used to say: “They’re not thinking.”


Kwarteng would have been Scholar’s sixth chancellor: he worked briefly with George Osborne, then Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak, and then, very briefly, Nadhim Zahawi.

The son of Sir Michael Scholar, the former Whitehall permanent secretary, Scholar was among a group of Treasury officials whose careers were nurtured in their 30s by Brown while he was chancellor and then later prime minister.

He served as Brown’s principal private secretary before moving to Washington as the UK representative at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He then worked as chief of staff for Brown, and returned to a senior post at the Treasury at the height of the banking crisis.

In 2013, Scholar led a taskforce of top UK civil servants dispatched to Cyprus to advise the stricken island how to handle its financial crisis.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×