Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss has pledged to shift £13 billion a year from the NHS to social care to free up hospital beds.

Speaking at a Times Radio leadership hustings, Truss said she would fund the spending through general taxation rather than the National Insurance rise introduced by rival candidate Rishi Sunak.

Truss said: “I still would spend the money, I would just take it out of general taxation rather than raising National Insurance.

“But I would spend that money in social care. The fact is quite a lot of it has gone into the NHS.

“I believe it should go into local authorities to deal with the very real issues in social care, because the problem we’ve got at the moment is people are in beds in the NHS who would be better off in social care beds. 

“So put the money into social care, free up more space in the National Health Service and empower the frontline in the National Health Service. Because there are still too many diktats in the frontline, people in the frontline feel disempowered.”

Truss is the strong favourite to become the next prime minister.

The new Conservative leader and prime minister will be announced on 5 September.