Early evening summary
Liz Truss has said she is still in principle in favour of cutting the 45% top rate of tax – even though she has shelved plans to abolish it now. (See 3.14pm.)
Braverman promises new legislation to stop people crossing Channel in small boats claiming asylum
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, received two standing ovations during her speech – one when she said “not give up” on tackling the small boats crossing the Channel, and another as she wound up. Hardline speeches from home secretaries always go down well at Tory conference, and this was one was in that tradition. Here are the key points.
Braverman said she would legislate to stop anyone crossing the Channel on a small boat claim asylum. She said:
I will commit to you that I will look to bring forward legislation make it clear that the only route to the United Kingdom is through a safe and legal route. And that is so that we can support those who need that help the most, including women and girls.
This is something her predecessor, Priti Patel, said she would achieve through the Nationality and Borders Act.
But she also stressed that there were no easy solutions to the problems of migrants crossing the Channel. She said:
We’ve all heard pledges and promises, but this problem is complex and entrenched, and there are many forces working against us.
Among her opponents on this issue, she cited the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, the Guardian and lawyers. “The Guardian will have a meltdown,” she promised.
She said the UK should not be relying on migrant labour. She said:
And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t train up enough of our own HGV drivers, or butchers, or fruit pickers. The way we build a high skilled, high wage economy is by encouraging business to invest in capital and domestic labour, not relying wholly on low skilled, foreign workers.
This seems to contradict what Liz Truss told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend about how she wanted to increase the number of seasonal agricultural workers coming to the UK.
Braverman claimed modern slavery laws, introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary, were being abused. Braverman said:
But the hard truth is that our modern slavery laws are being abused by people gaming the system. We have seen a 450% increase in modern slavery claims since 2014. Today, the largest group of small boats migrants are from Albania, a safe country. Many of them claim to be trafficked as modern slaves. That’s despite them having paid thousands of pounds to come here or having willingly taken a dangerous journey on the Channel. The truth is many of them are not modern slaves and their claims of being trafficked are lies.
We need to make sure our system strikes a right balance. Our laws need to be resilient against abuse whilst at the same time ensuring we help those in genuine need.
Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the Commons education committee, told Radio 4’s PM programme that benefits should be uprated in line with inflation because the Tories should care about growing society, as well as growing the economy. He said
There’s no other way to say that things have been grim, grim at conference, and grim over the past week.
The prime minister keeps talking about growing the economy, but we have got to talk about growing society as well and being the party of human and social capital, and not just the party of economic ... because both go hand in hand.
What does that mean? That means a relentless focus on the cost of living and helping the lower-paid and absolutely raising benefits in line with inflation as Boris Johnson pledged.
It means looking at how we’re going to ensure more affordable housing, how we’re championing education and skills, and at the moment we seem to be doing none of those things because the government seem bogged down in this argument amongst, in essence, people in the cabinet about the tax cuts for the well-off.
The German ambassador to the UK has said that if the UK implemented laws arising out of the Northern Ireland protocol bill it would be “the end” of talks to find a solution to the Brexit impasse over trade arrangements between GB and NI.
Miguel Berger told a Centre for European Reform panel at the conference:
We need to find a solution without the application of the protocol bill, because I think if this would be implemented, in my view at the end of the talks.
But he said he was hopeful that talks, which have resumed, would deliver a solution and allow everyone “to move forward”.
The polling company Redfield and Wilton Strategies has published new polling giving Labour a 38-point lead in red wall seats.
Labour lead by 38% in the Red Wall, up from 15% two weeks ago.
— Redfield & Wilton Strategies (@RedfieldWilton) October 4, 2022
Red Wall Voting Intention (3-4 Oct.):
Labour 61% (+12)
Conservative 23% (-11)
Reform UK 3% (-4)
Liberal Democrat 7% (+2)
Green 4% (–)
Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 19-20 Sept.https://t.co/Ih6ctJwLWK pic.twitter.com/ngN35t6rS7
The detailed figures will make bleak reading for the Conservatives. One graph shows how the proportion of voters in red wall seat saying they “strongly disapprove” of Liz Truss has tripled since mid September.
Lord Frost becomes latest Tory to call for benefits to be uprated in line with inflation
Many of the Tories publicly calling for benefits to be uprated in line with inflation are on the one nation, leftish wing of the party. But rightwingers are making this case too, and this afternoon Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister who on most issues is a strong supporter of the Liz Truss agenda, has joined those saying not uprating in line with inflation would be wrong. He told GB News:
I’m going to say something which I don’t say very often, which is I agree with Penny Mordaunt (see 8.02am) and I think she’s got this right.
The government has made a commitment to uprate benefits. It shouldn’t take on battles it can’t win. People feel insecure going into the autumn and I think it should stick to this commitment.
We should, of course, for the future, look at incentives to work and probably there is going to have to be reform over time, but choose your moments and reassure people and take people with you. That’ll be my view in the following the events of the last few days.
Updated
In the conference hall Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has just started speaking. According to briefing in advance, she will announce plans for a new law to stop anyone crossing the Channel on a small boat from claiming asylum in the UK (even thought the Nationality and Borders Act, passed by Priti Patel, was supposed to achieve this).
I will post a summary once the speech is over.
Andrew Marr, the former BBC political editor, has been attending party conferences since the 1980s. If you thought our mid-afternoon upsum was harsh (see 3.34pm), you should listen to his take on LBC this morning. He says that it’s an omnishambles conference and that it feels fatal for Liz Truss.
'I've never seen a conference dissolve quite like this one.'
— LBC (@LBC) October 4, 2022
Andrew Marr brutally sums up the atmosphere at the Conservative Party Conference.@NickFerrariLBC | @AndrewMarr9 pic.twitter.com/hG5nYukpNw
Patel says Tories must restore their reputation as party of 'sustainable public spending'
Priti Patel, the former home secretary, delivered her first major political intervention at a fringe meeting at the party conference today. In remarks briefed overnight ahead of her speech to the Times, she criticised the decison to announce unfunded tax cuts, saying the Tories had to be the party of “sustainable public spending”. She said:
We are spending today with no thought of tomorrow, and like the Blob in the old horror film, the more resources are absorbed today the bigger the problem gets and the more resources it will need to eat up tomorrow.
Right now, we have got into a pattern of borrowing huge amounts to fix today’s urgent problems or generate short-term populist headlines. Each time it seems that there’s a good case, but what does this mean for future generations?
I want to see our party regain its credibility by restoring its commitment to sustainable public spending . . . which is affordable today, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future.
As Sophia Sleigh reports at Huffpost UK, Patel also said that “nothing would be more divisive” than having another leadership contest to replace Liz Truss.
Education minister accused of 'relentless uni-bashing' by Jo Johnson
Jo Johnson, the former Tory universities minister, has criticised the education minister Andrea Jenkyns for saying at a fringe meeting yesterday that “the current system would rather our young people get a degree in Harry Potter studies than the apprenticeships shaping construction”.
In an interview with Times Radio, Johnson said this “relentless uni-bashing” was tiresome. Accusing Jenkyns of recycling a cliche, he said:
It used to be that ‘Mickey Mouse studies’ was the favourite sort of target for attack and now it’s become Harry Potter studies. The reality is these courses are few and far between relative to the numbers of really valuable courses that our higher education system is providing …
Our universities are a really great national asset for the UK and this relentless uni-bashing is a bit wearisome. So I would urge ministers to go easy on the sort of the relentless negativity about a sector which is really one of our great strengths as a country.
What you can see outside the room where senior Tories meet donors
Off the maps in the brochure and in a quiet(ish) corner several levels above the conference floor, Conservative donors, senior MPs, and ministers are rubbing shoulders in the imaginatively named Blue Room. It is a place where donors, and other VIPs, can meet senior party figures discreetly.
Its location is so poorly publicised that the Guardian ended up guiding a minister’s bag carrier as well as the president of a significant Conservative local association to the doors of the Jane How Room, which boasts “stunning views over Centenary Square”.
The Blue Room, a long-standing fixture of Tory conferences, is this year – as it was last year – sponsored by Tratos, a firm led by party donor Maurizio Bragagni. As opposed to its modest presence at the Labour party conference floor, the firm does not have a stall with the general corporate exhibitors, choosing instead to get its branding in front of the eyes of the Conservative party’s most senior figures.
Tratos’s sponsorship comes despite a Conservative party spokesperson criticising Bragagni after the BBC revealed remarks he had made about “foreign Muslims” running English cities. Earlier this afternoon outside the Blue Room, Bragagni greeted the Guardian, saying he was “fine, always fine. Better than me: only the Pope.”
Following a steady drumbeat set by Conservative party HQ, a stream of ministers came and went during the two hours the Guardian spent observing the comings and goings, such as Thérèse Coffey, James Cleverly, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and Ranil Jayawardena. Politicians past and present including Liam Fox, Brooks Newmark, and Shaun Bailey, the unsuccessful London mayoral candidate, as well as the TV personality Georgia Toffolo all passed the Guardian’s nook outside the Blue Room.
And with them, donors, businessmen, strategists, and advisers, talking away from prying eyes and ears.
Updated
Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, has restated her claim that, if Liz Truss wants to change the government’s policy agenda, she should call a general election.
We have no mandate from the people to do this.
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) October 4, 2022
Conservative Gov elected on basis of a manifesto, it’s how democracy works.
People voted in ‘19 on the policy promises we made (and for Boris).
If we don’t want to deliver on the deal, the promises, we need a fresh mandate. https://t.co/Q36iRAUzUH
Conservative MPs removed the PM people wanted and voted for with a stonking big majority less than three years ago. We can’t remove the policies too!
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) October 4, 2022
That’s just not how our unwritten constitution/democracy works or the example 🇬🇧 should set to the rest of the free world. https://t.co/AxNPC2fXBX
Thérèse Coffey’s speech to the Tory conference was mostly – or almost entirely – a rehash of the plan for patients she announed to MPs last month. James Illman from the Health Service Journal struggled to spot a new line.
@theresecoffey begins conference speech. She got a warm reception from activists in the hall, but we're not expecting a big announcement on NHS today #CPC22 today #cpc22
— James Illman (@Jamesillman) October 4, 2022
@theresecoffey:
— James Illman (@Jamesillman) October 4, 2022
* Gov needs to hold NHS to account
* Too many patients not having good experience (dentists, GPs electives)
* uses anecdote about how she waited for 9 hours in A&E, so went to a different A&E and got seen sooner, & says we need to eliminate this variation #CPC22
@theresecoffey runs thru her Ambulance, Backlog, (social) Care, Denists plan to #CPC22
— James Illman (@Jamesillman) October 4, 2022
And errr... that's that.
Nothing new there, although perhaps not a great surprise given the chaos everywhere...
Updated
The first speaker of the day on the platform at the Conservative party confernce is Thérese Coffey, the health secretary and deputy prime minister.
After a tribute to Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, she urges the party to “come together to tackle the issues that we have long faced”.
I will post a summary of the highlights once I have seen the full text.
Eric Pickles, a Tory peer and former party chair, told the BBC that it was “almost certain” that Tory MPs would fail to support the government if it tries to uprate benefits just in line with earnings. He said:
The next big issue is with regard to the uprating of benefits, and I obviously I’m out of it – I don’t know what’s happening in the Commons – but I was just recently talking to somebody who does know what’s happening, and it was her estimation that the numbers against not uprating were greater than those that were against the 45% income tax [cut].
Asked if he thought the government could not get sufficient backing if it decided against uprating benefits in line with inflation, Pickles said: “Yeah, I think that’s almost certain.”
Welsh secretary Robert Buckland backs raising benefits by inflation, saying 'safety net' should be maintained
As our fresh splash reports, Sir Robert Buckland, the Welsh secretary, has joined fellow cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt (see 8.02am) in signalling that he wants benefits to rise in line with inflation. Mordaunt said so explicitly. Buckland was a tiny bit more circumspect, but it is not hard to work out what he means.
He told Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt:
I’ve worked very closely with this prime minister for many years. She’s an extremely effective team player, she’s a great leader. And she’ll continue to listen and act accordingly. I have full confidence in that. I’m a one nation compassionate Conservative. I believe in enabling the most successful in our society to succeed, and I believe in the safety net as well.
Asked if he wanted to see benefits rise in line with inflation, Buckland replied:
Every Conservative government that I’ve been part of has maintained the safety net, and I’m sure this one will do the same.
Updated
Truss government in chaos amid budget confusion and coup accusations
My colleagues Rowena Mason, Jessica Elgot and Rajeev Syal have filed a story summing up the state of play at the Conservative party conference so far today. The intro is harsh – but not wrong.
Liz Truss’s government is in chaos after the chancellor refused to confirm he would bring forward his budget to calm the markets and the home secretary accused fellow MPs of a coup against the prime minister.
Braverman tells Gove to avoid media and not to air Tory 'dirty linen' in public
At the fringe event where Suella Braverman, the home secretary, claimed Tory MPs “staged a coup” against Liz Truss when they forced her to abandon the 45% top rate of tax (see 1.18pm and 2.30pm), she named Michael Gove as a key culprit.
Braverman told Chopper’s Politics podcast that the former cabinet minister was “airing dirty laundry” and called for him to stop. She said:
Ultimately I’m very disappointed that members of our own party staged a coup, effectively, and undermined the authority of the prime minister in an unprofessional way.
We are one party, the prime minister has been elected. She has got a serious mandate to deliver. She did talk about tax cuts all through the summer in a pretty exhausting process.
She is doing what it said on the tin.
Asked about Gove’s recent criticisms of the now scrapped 45p tax rate, she said:
Michael is a friend of mine but I do think he has got this wrong and it is incumbent on him to try and corral support and encourage the new administration to succeed, because ultimately we are on the same team and we should be focused on being united and delivering to the British people.
Asked what she would say to Gove, she said:
Michael, if you have got concerns, if you have disagreements raise them in private ... You don’t air your dirty linen.
Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary, has also urged Tory MPs unhappy about government policy to air their grievances in private, not through the media.
Updated
Truss says in principle she still wants to cut 45% top rate of tax
And here are some more lines from the round of TV interviews that Liz Truss recorded this morning.
Truss said she was still in principle in favour of cutting the 45% top rate of tax – even though she had shelved plans to abolish it now. She said:
I would like to see the higher rate lower. I want us to be a competitive country but I have listened to feedback, I want to take people with me.
She claimed that spending cuts would not involve cuts to frontline services. The government has said departments will have to stick within existing budgets, even though inflation has gone up by more than was expected, meaning they face cuts in real terms. Talking about her plans for public spending, Truss said:
There will be some areas where there are projects the government is doing that we don’t think should go ahead, but what I’m not talking about is reducing frontline services.
Critics say it is very hard to cut departmental budgets without frontline services being affected.
She said she wanted to see more Rwanda-style deals to deter people crossing the Channel on small boats, and she said she would consider “all options” to deal with the problem.
She said she did not want to see immigration rising. She said:
I don’t want to see numbers going up, what I want to see is the right people coming in with the right skills that can contribute to Britain.
She rejected suggestions that Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, should be sacked for saying benefits should rise in line with inflation (see 8.02am) – a comment that seemed to breach collective cabinet responsibility, because Mordaunt was pre-judging a decision not yet taken. Asked if Mordaunt had to go, Truss replied: “No, she doesn’t. This is about a decision that we are taking later on this year.”
Truss rejected a suggestion that her first month in office had been a disaster. “I don’t agree with that analysis,” she said, when it was put to her.
She said the government has no plans to abolish inheritance tax – even though Andrew Griffith, a Treasury minister, has said personally he would favour the idea.
(Alert readers will have noticed a pattern in the blog today. With ministers sounding off about policy, regardless of what the government line is, unity and message discipline is breaking down.)
Truss refused an invitation to apologise to people who lost mortgage deals, or who are paying higher mortgages, as a result of the market turmoil triggered by the mini-budget. And she also said she had no shame over this. She told Sky News:
I think there’s absolutely no shame in a leader listening to people and responding and that’s the kind of person I am.
I’ve been totally honest and upfront with people that everything I have done as prime minister is focused on helping people get through what is a very difficult winter.
She said there was no immediate prospect of Ukraine joining Nato.
She said she did not support the return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece.
Updated
Truss says she does trust Kwarteng as chancellor and works 'very closely' with him
Liz Truss has been doing a series of interviews with broadcasters today. Speaking to Sky’s Sam Coates, she twice refused to say she trusted Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor. (See 12.09pm.) But in a subsequent interview with Talk TV she said that, of course, she trusted him. She said:
I do trust the chancellor, absolutely. The chancellor is a very close colleague of mine, we work very closely together.
Updated
Levelling up secretary, Simon Clarke, backs Braverman in attacking Tories who forced 45% tax U-turn
Simon Clarke, the levelling up secretary, has joined Suella Braverman, the home secretary, in criticising the Tory MPs who persuaded Liz Truss to abandon the plan to cut the 45% top rate of income tax. (See 1.18pm.) He has posted this on Twiter.
Suella speaks a lot of good sense, as usual. https://t.co/EHEPhhZ0sX
— Simon Clarke MP (@SimonClarkeMP) October 4, 2022
This is fascinating, because there is a lot going on in these nine words.
Ostensibly, Braverman and Clarke are having a go at Michael Gove. Gove (Clarke’s predecessor-but-one as levelling up secretary) was the MP who led the attack on the decision to abolish the 45% rate at the conference on Friday. All three were hardline Brexiters, but on this issue they are at loggerheads.
Gove’s views were shared by many, and probably most, Conservative MPs. The two cabinet ministers are not just attacking a maverick colleague; they are dismissing a large chunk of the parliamentary party as disloyal. This is the sort of language that emerges when a party is sliding into civil war territory.
And, most interestingly, Braverman, and Clarke with his endorsement of her comments, are implicitly criticising Liz Truss for giving into pressure on the 45% issue in the first place. In interviews, Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, have accepted that trying to abolish this tax rate now was a mistake (although they have implied they still believe in principle it would be good for the 45% rate to go at some point). But Braverman and Clarke seem to be saying Truss should have stuck to her guns, echoing criticism of her in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
Updated
Andrew Mitchell, the former Tory chief whip, has joined those calling for benefits to be uprated in line with inflation, and not just earnings. He told the World at One:
I didn’t come into politics to make poor people poorer. It seems to me that it will be very strange to have dealt with and addressed this issue of terrifying rising costs on the one hand, and then not to maintain the real value of the benefits and support that the poorest in society really needs.
Mitchell said government whips were talking to MPs to find out how much support there would be for a decision to uprate benefits just in line with earnings.
Updated
Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, has posted an interesting thread on Twitter countering arguments that benefits should only be uprated in line with earnings, not inflation. It starts here.
Since this row - and arguments like this - are going to dominate the next month, a few facts: https://t.co/nxrepyZx0w
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) October 4, 2022
And this is his conclusion.
To save significant £s via lower benefit upratings you will need to go far beyond lazy stereotypes of adults sleeping behind curtains - it’ll mean cutting benefits for children & those with disabilities because that’s where we spend £s (remember housing support is already frozen)
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) October 4, 2022
Updated
Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Ben Quinn.
This is from Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, responding to Liz Truss refusing twice in a Sky News interview to say she trusts Kwasi Kwarteng. (See 12.09pm.) McFadden said:
The fact that the prime minister can’t even say she trusts her chancellor tells you all you need to know about the architects of the economic chaos into which they have plunged the country.
Instead of disowning the problem and blaming one another they must put the country first and abandon their discredited trickle-down approach.
Updated
Braverman: MPs 'staged a coup' against Truss over 45p tax rate
Tory MPs “staged a coup” against the prime minister over the 45p tax rate, Suella Braverman has said.
The home secretary told the Chopper’s Politics podcast:
Ultimately I’m very disappointed that members of our own party staged a coup, effectively, against the prime minister.
She added that former minister Michael Gove “got it wrong”, saying it was “incumbent on him to try and corral support” for Liz Truss and he should have raised his concerns “in private”.
She said:
I’m very disappointed to say the least by how some of our colleagues have behaved.
Updated
Government may stick to 23 November for fiscal plan after all
Kwasi Kwarteng’s medium-term fiscal plan is in confusion. He told GB News his fiscal plan “will be on the 23rd” of November in an interview on Tuesday.
However, government sources are still saying that they are considering bringing it forward, and on Monday night, there were briefings from the sources close to the leadership that it would be this month.
Liz Truss also said: “We’ve got the date of November 23. This is when we are going to set out the OBR forecast as well as the medium-term fiscal plan.
Now Liz Truss has said it as well - confirmed the date of Nov 23 for the medium term fiscal plan. If they're considering bringing it forward (as per government sources), why not just say so now?!
— Rowena Mason (@rowenamason) October 4, 2022
Updated
Michael Gove, the former education secretary, has said free school meals could be extended to all families on universal credit for just £500m.
I think it needs to be stressed that interventions by the state at critical moments in order to improve the welfare of all its citizens are not socialists. Conservative care about the community and care about public health interventions, he told an Onward panel on school food and poverty.
It seems to me this is a more than worthwhile intervention considering some of the other police choices in front of us.
Duncan Smith says benefits should rise in line with inflation
Iain Duncan Smith has said it would be wrong for the government not to increase benefits in line with inflation.
In a warning to Liz Truss’s government as she considers increasing the value of universal credit benefits from April by less than the rate of inflation for September this year, he said putting more money in lower-income households’ pockets would help grow the economy.
“If you do want growth the group that is most likely to spend the money that you give to them is the group we’re talking about [lower-income households].”
“If you want the economy to grow... the money you give to people through their benefits will end up almost certainly back in the economy in double quick time. So there is a positive to this.”
Duncan Smith said he resigned in 2016 because he believed the government had “lost the plot” on the balance between support for working people and those out of a job, and that it would be best for the government to look at support for households in the round.
The former Conservative leader said the government needed to provide extra support for those in the most difficult circumstances during the cost of living crisis, and that it made little sense to offer a real-terms cut in the value of support for the poorest.
Updated
Shell boss says further taxes on energy companies 'inevitable' to help fund fuel bills support
The chief executive of Shell has said governments may need to tax energy companies further to fund efforts to protect the “poorest” people from soaring bills.
Ben van Beurden, the outgoing boss of the oil and gas company, told an energy conference in London: “One way or another there needs to be government intervention. Protecting the poorest, that probably may then mean that governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it.
“I think we just have to accept as a society – it can be done smartly and not so smartly. There is a discussion to be had about it but I think it’s inevitable.”
Last week EU ministers agreed to tap windfall profits of companies and redirect them to customers and businesses as part of an initial energy package. The EU executive hopes to raise €140bn (£121bn) through the levies. The bloc also set a goal to reduce power consumption.
Updated
Tory members have been using a meeting with their party’s chairman to vent their frustration at MPs affecting their local campaigning efforts.
One Conservative member told Jake Berry they are “sick and tired” of having to answer questions about MPs’ actions while canvassing for local votes.
Another said that “what was going on down in London” - hinting at the scandals which brought down Boris Johnson’s government - had turned a previously safe seat in their area into a marginal one.
At a Conservative party conference fringe event where members were able to meet the new party chairman, Woking borough councillor Melanie Whitehand said: “I am sick and tired, when we go around canvassing, every time what gets pulled up is what is happening in government.”
“Although we say local issues for local politics, it absolutely gets drowned out by whatever the MPs are doing in the chamber.”
She added that MPs were “selfish” and “not paying mind” to the Tory party members who helped get them elected.”
Berry replied that “every member of parliament should be canvassing regularly with their council team”, as he does.
He said: “I don’t have to rely on my council colleagues coming to me and saying: ‘Do me a favour, will you? Just shut up in Westminster and will you let us get on with winning our local election’, because I hear it directly from the voters.”
Updated
The new chair of parliament’s environment, food and rural affairs committee (EFRA) has made a veiled reference to Carrie Johnson, who lobbied her husband Boris for animal welfare legislation when he was prime minister.
Talking about rural voters being turned off the previous administration, Sir Robert Goodwill told a Countryside Alliance event:
We need to reassure that while before the people who held sway with the previous administration here in the UK in terms of animal rights, that the view of the minority will be listened to, and support them when you start talking about people’s right to shoot.
The panel pointed out that in some rural areas according to YouGov the conservatives are polling in the 20s at the moment and labour are polling in the 40s.
MP Fay Jones said the recent debate about the new farming subsidies in the Conservative party had been “deeply unhelpful” but added that the party should “not be dancing to the tune of environmental NGOs”.
Updated
Liz Truss refuses to say she has confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng
Liz Truss gave broadcast interviews today as she visited a construction site in Birmingham with her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.
Asked if she had confidence in her chancellor, the prime minister twice refused to say so. Here she is being interviewed by Sky News:
NEW: Liz Truss twice refuses to say she has confidence in Kwarteng.
— Best for Britain (@BestForBritain) October 4, 2022
(Also, I'm not sure that "one of the things that caused market chaos and has increased borrowing costs for gov't and voters, we never really needed to do it" is the strong defence they think it is.) ~AA pic.twitter.com/Y35F5se02y
Updated
Kwasi Kwarteng’s longest public appearance at the Conservative party conference will not be on the main stage, where he spoke for 20 minutes on Monday, but at a fringe event hosted by two thinktanks on Tuesday afternoon.
For an hour, the “person responsible for the UK’s economic future”, as the event bills it, will outline his vision in a conversation with the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). It will be longer than his 25-minute “mini-budget” speech and his “quarter of an hour – or maybe a bit longer” with party donors after the mini-budget.
Mark Littlewood, the director general of the IEA, will be one of Kwarteng’s interviewers, speaking to the man responsible for implementing “Trussonomics”.
The IEA has faced criticism over a lack of transparency over its donors, and a 2019 Guardian investigation found it had historically issued publications arguing climate change is either not significantly driven by human activity or will be positive.
Another charity has joined calls for reassurances that benefits will not face what effectively will be cuts if increases do not keep pace with inflation.
Brian Dow, the deputy chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said:
The chancellor yesterday pledged to always be on the side of those who need help the most, but this is contradicted by the prime minister’s failure to commit to uprating benefits in line with inflation – the bare minimum government could do to show it recognises the hardship faced by people bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis.
We’re growing ever more concerned that there is a lack of understanding at the heart of the debate about who is going to be impacted by this.
Updated
Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called for a further taper rate reduction and suggested the government should invest in universal credit.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory conference, the Conservative former leader and work and pensions secretary said he was “pleased” former chancellor Rishi Sunak lowered the taper rate, adding: “I think it should come lower in due course.”
He went on:
There’s not a better incentive than if we think for people as we have been arguing this week that lower taxes produce growth, then why would it be different for people on benefits?
If you have a lower withdrawal rate then they’re more likely to be proactive, more likely to get on, more likely to be able to be productive etc.
Updated
The Liberal Democrats have made calls for Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to have their pay docked following their “gross mismanagement of the public finances”.
The party says it will table a censure motion in parliament calling for action against the prime minister and the chancellor.
Truss would lose £40,000 and Kwarteng £33,750 under the proposal, the Lib Dems add.
The motion states:
That this house censures the chancellor of the exchequer and the prime minister, for their handling of the UK’s public finances, which has dramatically increased households’ mortgage costs and threatened pension funds; and believes the government should halve the chancellor’s additional ministerial salary, and halve the prime minister’s additional salary this year, as a result of this gross mismanagement of the public finances.
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Away from the Tory Party conference, the chair of the Covid-19 public inquiry has said that bereaved families and those who suffered will be at the heart of its inquiries, as she promised to be “fair” and “thorough”.
Former court of appeal judge Lady Heather Hallett opened the inquiry in London saying she planned to investigate the UK’s preparedness for a pandemic, the government’s response, and its impact on patients, NHS and social care staff and the public.
A minute’s silence was held for those who lost their lives, with Hallett saying:
There’s one word that sums up the pandemic for so many, and that is the word ‘loss’.
Although there were positive aspects of the pandemic, for example, the way in which communities banded together to help each other and the vulnerable, millions of people suffered loss, including the loss of friends and family members; the loss of good health - both mental and physical; economic loss; the loss of educational opportunities and the loss of social interaction.
Those who are bereaved lost the most. They lost loved ones and the ability to mourn properly.
Hallett said the inquiry would analyse how the Covid pandemic unfolded and would determine whether the “level of loss was inevitable or whether things could have been done better”.
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Referring to the controversy surrounding Partygate, a member of the audience at a Tory conference fringe event on rebuilding trust after the Johnson era has claimed that a “drinking culture” within the civil service was at fault and needed to be cleaned up.
Responding to him, Dave Penman of the FDA union said:
I was a civil servant and while I was in the civil service over 20 years ago alcohol was banned in most departments. I think what we saw in Partygate was an issue about No 10, not the civil service.
Jeremy Wright, a Tory MP and former minister, backs him up:
Every trade has some people who drink too much to cope with the pressure. There are frankly some politicians who drink too much and that includes ministers. Not while they are making decisions but after they have made decisions.
The same event was told that trust among the public towards government was at a level that was last seen in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
“The Blair years were a really good example of people saying: well they are not going to be any different,” said Dr Susan Hawley of Spotlight on Corruption, who also warned that polling had shown some very authoritarian instincts and reactions from the public in the wake of the decline in trust.
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Challenged over whether borrowing to buy years’ worth of gas at almost record-high prices is a good deal, Truss has told broadcasters in Birmingham:
I have not signed any deal. But what I’m saying is that Britain’s energy security is vital and what we will be doing is always looking for value for money, of course we will, but it’s important that we have that long-term energy security.
Asked if the markets will be happier with more borrowing, Truss said:
This is speculation, you know, no deal has been signed. But as I’m very clear about, we are completely focused on fiscal discipline.
We will be bringing down the debt as a proportion of GDP over the medium term, but making sure we’ve got energy security is clearly vital for our country.
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Civil servants are tired of ministers saying one thing in private about the work of civil servants and then “denigrating” them in public, a fringe event on rebuilding trust after the Johnson era has been told by the head of a union which represents senior civil servants.
Two things could be done that would help rebuild trust among civil servants, said Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union
That is: stop attacking them and introduce the sort of independent and transparent process that the committee for standards in public life have talked about and which has been introduced elsewhere.
Penman also recalled the reports that Downing Street at the time of Boris Johnson’s premiership had a “hit list” of permanent secretaries it would like to replace.
Something that had come up “time and time again” was the conduct of some ministers in the workplace, said Penman, instancing Jacob Rees-Mogg’s post-it notes on the desks of civil servants who were working at home or were not in the office due to other duties at that time.
Rees-Mogg was called “condescending” earlier this year after leaving notes deemed to be passive-aggressive on civil servants’ desks in an effort to stop them working from home.
As part of his campaign to push workers back into offices, the cabinet minister has toured Whitehall buildings and published a league table of government departments based on how many staff are present.
Referring also to the most serious of allegations about the behaviour of ministers and MPs, he added:
As we saw in the scandal that erupted around Westminster around the MeToo movement there are times when politicians’ conduct falls below that which is acceptable in any workplace but they are not employees and it is a process essentially of self-regulation.
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Liz Truss has said that the government is looking at long-term energy contracts with other countries to secure supply.
Asked if she is contemplating buying many years’ worth of Norwegian gas at close to current prices, she told broadcasters in Birmingham:
What I have said is, first of all, we will move forward on our own energy security, so that’s more renewables here in the UK, it’s more nuclear power here in the UK, and it’s also moving forward faster with using North Sea facilities.
But we are looking at long-term energy contracts with other countries because as well as making sure we’ve got a good price, energy security is vitally important.
And we never want to be in a position again where we’re dependent on authoritarian regimes for our energy. That’s why we’re in the situation we are now.
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Jeremy Wright, a Tory MP on the panel here at the Tory conference discussion on rebuilding trust after ‘the Johnson era’, says that he “fervently hopes” that the new prime minister will appoint a new ethics advisor.
Wright, the Conservative member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, says however that the process of appointment needs to be regulated
“Not that the PM cannot choose who they want but that there should be methods to reassure people,” he says.
The advisor should also be able to initiate their own investigations and determine if there has been a breach in the ministerial code.
A reminder that Liz Truss refused to commit during the leadership to appointing an ethics adviser if she became prime minister, saying she has “always acted with integrity”.
I think we’re going to hear some interesting contributions at this fringe during questions from the floor and when others on the panel come in.
They include Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants.
It may feel like an age ago, but it was only in June of this year that Boris Johnson’s ethics advisor, Lord Geidt, dramatically quit after conceding the then prime minister may have broken the ministerial code over the Partygate scandal.
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Tory party activists, councillors and others have packed out a fringe event, where I’m now liveblogging from, on the topic of: “How can government rebuild trust after the Johnson era?”
Dr Hannah White, acting director of the Institute for government, starts by reminding those present that the Johnson government was marked by a series of ethical scandals, which ultimately led to its downfall.
Standing room only at a Tory fringe event in how govt can rebuild trust after ‘the Johnson era’
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) October 4, 2022
Chaired by @DrHannahWhite pic.twitter.com/sxP9OoGYtM
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Liz Truss has refused to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation, amid a fresh battle with MPs over cuts to spending including concern from among her cabinet.
The prime minister said pensions would rise in line with inflation, having committed to the pensions “triple lock” during the leadership campaign. But she said people on welfare benefits were in a “different situation” and said they were more able to look for more work.
“When people are on a fixed income, when they are pensioners, it is quite hard to adjust. I think it’s a different situation for people who are in the position to be able to work,” she told LBC. “What I want to do is make sure that we are helping more people into work.”
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ministers were “going to have to make decisions about how we bring down debt as a proportion of GDP in the medium term … I am very committed to supporting the most vulnerable.”
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A real-terms cut to benefits would be a direct cut to support for dying people, an end of life charity has said in response to the prime minister’s comments this morning on whether or not the government will increase benefits in line with inflation.
Dr Sam Royston, director of policy and research at the end of life charity Marie Curie, said:
90,000 people die in poverty each year in the UK. And terminally ill people of working age are at particular risk. For many terminally ill people, a cut in support midst of a cost-of-living crisis would effectively remove any quality of life they hoped to have in their final weeks.
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Lord Frost laughed when he was asked about the apology offered by arch Brexiter Steve Baker to Ireland and Brussels for the way that the MP and some of his colleagues behaved over the past six years.
In fact, claimed Frost, the UK had been “the victim of poor behaviour from the EU in Ireland”.
Steve has his own way of these things. An honest assessment is that things could have been done differently on both sides. I think the UK has been the victim of poor behaviour from the EU in Ireland and there are things on reflection that we would have done differently.
I don’t think it helps to rake over things the whole time and the important thing is to try and find an agreement if they possibly can.
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Lord Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, has said that he worries that a “weak start” is going to “discredit the agenda” of the Truss government.
He was speaking this morning on LBC, where he was asked about the prospect that backbenchers could force future U-turns from the government.
Well this is the problem now. I worry that this rather weak start is going to discredit the whole agenda, that every time we try and do anything that there is going to be a coalition against this.
I think the only way to deal with that is to pause, explain and set out what needs to be done in a more thoughtful way.
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Former Conservative leader William Hague said that he hoped the government could learn from the U-turn on income tax and the political chaos of recent days.
He told Times Radio: Maybe the government are beginning to learn, after a very terrible start, that they do have to look ahead and anticipate these problems.”
Unlike some other party members, Lord Hague did not suggest that defeat at the next election was inevitable for the government.
The whole political situation in this country is very fluid. And if I was the Labour party, I would not be confident I’ve got people excited yet about what a Labour government could do. There is still a lot to play for.
But he said that Liz Truss’ team needs to learn the “right lessons” from the mini-budget debacle.
They can either look at what’s happened over the 45p tax rate and say: ‘Oh, we had to give way on that so we’ve got to be adamant about everything else that we first thought otherwise we’re going to look weak’, but that would be a disastrous approach. Or they can say: ‘Well, maybe we should now really look ahead and not dig any more holes an climb into them and let’s be careful now’ and they really need to take that approach on a whole range of subjects because we’re coming into a very difficult period as a country and in the whole world anyway.
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Ahead of her speech today to the Conservative party conference, the home secretary has said she would examine the possibility of giving anonymity to suspected criminals after concern over the identification and treatment of high-profile people wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
Suella Braverman made the pledge after criticising the “media circus” surrounding accusations against the singer Cliff Richard and the former MP Harvey Proctor, which both said had ruined their lives.
Braverman told a Young Conservatives audience at the party conference in Birmingham that “trial by media will only undermine our justice system”.
Asked about the treatment of Richard and Proctor, both of whom were cleared of any wrongdoing after facing high-profile claims, she said:
We have had some high-profile instances where the media circus around a suspect who has not been charged has been devastating. I think coverage of people prior to charge can be very, very damaging, particularly if the charges are not pursued or if they are dropped later on.
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Kwasi Kwarteng’s decision to bring forward his debt-cutting plan could help to calm markets and mean smaller future interest rate rises than would otherwise have been the case, according to the Tory chair of parliament’s influential Treasury watchdog.
Mel Stride, a Conservative MP and the chair of the Treasury committee, said moving the government’s fiscal statement to October from 23 November, could restore some confidence, depending on the content of the plan and the detail of the new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility.
The pound rose to a two-week high above $1.14 on Tuesday as Kwarteng prepared to announce an earlier date to set out his plans to cut debts. Stride said that if the plans were well received, the Bank of England might opt for a smaller rate rise at its next meeting on 3 November.
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Truss was asked about her views on what she has described as “obstacles to growth” replying that she was intent on pressing ahead with plans to remove “top-down” housing targets.
It’s wrong that how houses are built is centrally directed. Instead we are setting up new investment zones, which are places that people want homes to be built and they want businesses to be built. It’s an approach based more on local consent than centrally based targets.
She was also asked if she had the courage to tell a Tory conference that more immigrants would be needed to do the jobs that were needed in the UK?
Truss said that Suella Braverman, the home secretary, was looking at the ensuring that the immigration provided what was needed and if that meant bringing in more highly skilled workers then it should be the case
That is the balance that she needs to strike. Yes there is more that we can do to get the highly skilled people we need in our economy but we also need to train more people.
A large number of people had become “economically inactive” during Covid and it was important to get them back to work, she added.
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Yet another Tory MP, Caroline Noakes, has popped up to draw a line in the sand over the question of raising benefits in line with inflation.
Glad to hear Leader of the House of Commons @PennyMordaunt has made clear her commitment to uprating benefits in line with inflation on radio this morning.
— Caroline Nokes MP (@carolinenokes) October 4, 2022
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“How is the government going to re-establish its financial credibility?,” Truss was asked on the Today programme.
Pointing again to the government’s measures to alleviate the expected rises in energy costs, Truss said: “I do think we need to recognise first of all that people are struggling and it is a difficult time. I have every sympathy and I am doing all I can as prime minister to address that.”
Nick Robinson came in at this point to say that this was all very well, but the increase in mortgage costs had wiped out the gains on energy for many people. She replied
Every single household benefits from our energy price guarantee and of course we had to act very quickly as a government to deal with that and of course it has meant extra borrowing and I acknowledge that we should have done more to lay the groundwork.
Will she admit that it was a mistake?
There is always balance to be struck and we do need to get things done but we are also a listening government. We reflect on where things could have been done better.
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Truss was asked about the announcement this week by a major financial advice firm, deVere Group, that it was cancelling all of its UK property investment projects due to the ongoing heightened “economic upheaval”.
Would the government bring forward plans forward its fiscal statement to provide calm to investors and others?
We are working very closely with the OBR. It’s important that we have a forecast to go with that plan and that’s something the chancellor is working on.
As things stand the Guardian understands Kwasi Kwarteng will speed up plans for a new fiscal statement, expected to be focused on spending and deregulation.
It will now take place later this month, rather than 23 November, accompanied by new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility, in another move designed to restore market stability.
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The focus on the government’s 45p tax rate was “becoming a distraction,” Liz Truss has told BBC Radio 4 in the full interview which she recored on Monday at the request of her office.
Asked about the fear and anxiety – as well as material consequences for large numbers of mortgage holders – generated for millions of people by Kwasi mini-budget, Truss replied
Well, I have already admitted that we should have done a better job at laying the ground for that but I think what would have been completely wrong is us not to act.
She continued to insist that “the biggest part of the package was the energy price cap. Pressed on the plan to cut 45p rate of income tax for higher earners, now scrapped, she replied that “the whole issue about the 45p has become a distraction from the core part of the package.”
Pressed about the mini-budget’s other taxes, which are still tp be paid for, she replied:
In the case of corporation tax we are not talking a cut. We are talking about not raising a tax and what I believe is wrong is that going into a slowing global economy, when Britain is trying to attract investment from around the world, we would put up our corporation tax rate to considerably higher than the rate in Ireland, the same rate as in France.
Here are some of the key events as well as interesting-looking fringe events scheduled for today at the Tory conference in Birmingham.
Headline speakers later include the home secretary, Suella Braverman, who will use her conference speech to set out her intention to bring in new laws to make it easier to deport people who come to the UK illegally.
The home secretary will promise to allow “the kind of immigration that grows our economy” but “end abuse of the rules” as she addresses activists at the Conservative party conference.
9.30am: Andrew Griffith, financial secretary to the Treasury, will speak alongside Lord Frost at an even on domestic investment.
10.30am: An event entitled “After the Johnson era, how can the government rebuild trust?” Speakers will include Tory MP Jeremy Wright.
1pm: Michael Gove will speak at an event called: How can health revitalise the economy?’
4pm: Main speakers in a session entitled: Delivering Better Public Services | Foreign Affairs
Speakers include the health secretary, Thérèse Coffey; the home secretary, Suella Braverman; the transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan; the education secretary, Kit Malthouse; and the justice secretary, Brandon Lewis.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will also set out foreign policy priorities.
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Penny Mordaunt says benefits should rise with inflation
Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt has told Times Radio that benefits should rise with inflation:
Mordaunt, one of Truss’s vanquished rivals during the Tory leadership race, said:
I’ve always supported - whether it’s pensions, whether it’s our welfare system - keeping pace with inflation. It makes sense to do so. That’s what I voted for before.
In a potentially key intervention that will be picked over for its contrast to the carefully chosen words this morning from the prime inister, Mordaunt added:
We want to make sure that people are looked after and that people can pay their bills. We are not about trying to help people with one hand and take away with another.
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Senior Conservative officials have accused West Midlands police of failing to do enough to keep protesters away from delegates at the party conference, a leaked letter reveals.
The disclosure comes just hours after the police were forced to lock down the conference in central Birmingham for several hours after a security scare. Police say they have been shortchanged by over £500,000 on the costs of keeping the conference in Birmingham secure.
Jake Berry, the Conservative party chair, and Darren Mott, party chief executive, sent a letter on Sunday evening to the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands raising “serious concerns” over security around the conference.
The Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, has written a piece which delves in to the behind-the-scenes events which led to the government’s u-turn on the 45 pence tax rate.
As early as Friday, Truss and her No 10 team were calling round Tory MPs.
She spoke to one former cabinet minister just as they were door-knocking constituents.
I told her I’d just been told how unfair it was that we were protecting the rich while my constituent was worried about paying their mortgage.
Some MPs suspected something was up when the Tory whips failed to do their regular weekend ring-round to test the mood.
“It seemed odd, especially after such a turbulent week,” said one. “But it also meant that they didn’t know if they had the numbers to get the policy through the Commons.”
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Liz Truss refuses to say whether benefits will rise in line with inflation
Good morning from the Conservative party conference on the day the spotlight is falling on a fresh battle between Liz Truss and Tory rebels – this time over the level of benefits.
It’s only a day after the government was forced into a humiliating U-turn on plans to abolish the top rate of income tax and the date of a new mini-budget.
This morning Truss is doing a broadcast round where she has refused to rule out real-terms benefit cuts to help pay for her government’s plans
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that there is a need to be “fiscally responsible” amid suggestions benefits will not rise in line with inflation.
She said:
We are going to have to make decisions about how we bring down debt as a proportion of GDP in the medium term.
I am very committed to supporting the most vulnerable, in fact in addition to the energy price guarantee we’re also providing an extra £1,200 to the poorest households. So we have to look at these issues in the round, we have to be fiscally responsible.
Asked by the Today programme’s Nick Robinson about how she can guarantee that pensions will rise with inflation and not benefit payments, Truss replied the government is looking “at all of these issues very carefully” and an announcement “will be made in due course”.
But with Tory MPs plotting, the Guardian understands the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, will speed up plans for a new fiscal statement, expected to focus on spending and deregulation.
It will now take place later this month, rather than on 23 November as previously scheduled, accompanied by new forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility, in another move designed to restore market stability.
Senior MPs warned of further rebellions over reductions in public spending, especially on benefits, which the chancellor has declined to rule out.
You can reach me on Twitter at @BenQuinn75 if you would like to flag up any political developments that we should be taking stock of. Andrew Sparrow will be taking over later.
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