Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg has aired for the final time in 2024.

The show touched on a number of the week's - if not the year's - biggest stories, and heard from some of the biggest names behind them.

We're ending our live coverage now, but there's plenty more to whet your political appetite from across the BBC:

• Read Laura's write-up of her interview with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on small boats crossings
• Catch up on today's episode over on BBC iPlayer
• Listen to the latest episode of Newscast - which Laura's darted off to record. It'll be uploaded BBC Sounds shortly
• Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments

This page was edited by Emily McGarvey and Tinshui Yeung. The writers were Frances Mao, Lana Lam and Emily Atkinson.

Here are the main points from today's show, which looked at asylum seeker policy and recent reports of Chinese influence in the UK:

• Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says the government aims to reduce small boat crossings but won't commit to "gimmicky" targets
• She says the focus is on working with other countries, boosting law enforcement, and "going after the criminal gangs" to tackle the backlog
• Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Chris Philp says the Conservatives would introduce a hard cap on migration and argues that Labour's decision to cancel the Rwanda plan is a mistake
• Both politicians stressed the need for scrutiny over improper Chinese influence in the UK, following reports of an alleged spy linked to Prince Andrew
• Additionally, AI start-up founder Clay Bavor acknowledges that AI will introduce "destabilising aspects", which means some jobs will disappear. OpenAI chair Bret Taylor says that although this change might be "uncomfortable", he is excited about the new jobs that will emerge

After a rendition of Silent Night from baritone Benjamin Appl to play out the final show of the year, that's a wrap.

We'll be rounding up all the key lines for you shortly, so don't go anywhere.

The panel discussion then turned to Labour's devolution White Paper, with Kuenssberg asking Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, if this might give councils more power.

This is a "real shift" in how the country is run, Burnham says, with the British state "tilting away from Whitehall for the first time properly and towards the regions".

However, a big area where it's not going far enough is post-16 education, Burnham says.

The Department for Education takes a "very centralising view", he says, but this risks "putting a brake on growth".

He says he's been talking to the education secretary Bridget Phillipson and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to have more control over this issue too.

Before going into the interview with Taylor and Bavor, Laura spoke to the panel for their thoughts on her interviews with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and her Tory counterpart Chris Philp.

James Reed, chairman of the recruitment firm, Reed, says the net migration numbers have "surprised people" and that making that work is a "live issue".

Discussing the state of the economy, he says it is "cooling" and has been "for several months".

Reed notes that vacancies are falling by 13% month on month - "a significant decline" - adding that what he's seen has in the past been "an indicator recession is around the corner".

Labour's Budget "has spooked business", he says.

The discussion now moves to some of the controversies surrounding OpenAI, like its legal battle with Elon Musk and the surprising sacking and re-hiring of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman last November.

Kuenssberg asks Taylor if he was the man who saved Altman's job.

Taylor chuckles at the question, saying it was a very personal decision to become chair of OpenAI.

Almost a year ago, "I got a phone call and heard that Sam had been fired by the previous board," he says.

Open AI was "almost on the verge of collapsing" and he had been brought in to "mediate an outcome," Taylor explains.

"So I didn't come in with the mindset of necessarily saving his job, I came in to save OpenAI."

What are the negatives of AI? Kuenssberg asks Bavor.

"There will be destabilising aspects," he says, like changes to jobs, where some roles transform into new ones, and others disappear, replaced by different types of jobs.

On the positive side, it's about having "access to expert assistance," he adds.

Kuenssberg puts it to the tech pair that as AI models become more sophisticated and "superhuman", there are two paths - "human controlled or out of control" - and so do governments need to consider stronger regulation?

Two paths implies black or white, Bavor says, and the only path that is acceptable is "in control".

We need to strike a balance, he says, between being conservative "so that the worst case scenarios can not happen," but also not limit the benefit from the "very real gains of AI".

Taylor, who is Open AI's chairman - the company behind Chat GPT - says the company's mission is to "ensure AI benefits all of humanity" and staff "authentically care" about the safety of AI.

Kuenssberg asks Bavor, a former Google executive, to explain in simple terms what an AI agent is.

They're "autonomous pieces of software that you can give a goal and a set of guardrails to," Bavor says, allowing them to "independently solve problems and get things done for you".

In the future, we'll all have personal AI agents, Bavor predicts.

Won't this mean traditional jobs will disappear? Kuenssberg asks.

"With every new technology, jobs definitely change... it is a transition," Taylor says, and while it might be "uncomfortable", he's excited about the new jobs that will emerge.

Image source, Reuters

Our next guests are Bret Taylor, who's on the board of OpenAI and co-founded the AI start-up Sierra - an AI platform for businesses - in 2023 with Clay Bavor.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded in 2015 and is credited with bringing AI tools into the mainstream.

Taylor's CV includes some of the biggest names in tech, like Facebook and Google, where he co-created Google Maps. He was also chairman of Twitter but was ousted in 2022 after Elon Musk bought the company and dissolved the board.

Bavor worked at Google for 18 years, most recently leading Google Labs. He managed various products such as Gmail and Google Drive before heading up Google's virtual reality team in 2015.

The discussion moves to recent reports of Chinese spying involving Prince Andrew, with Kuenssberg asking Philp if there should be an investigation.

Philp says the issue of Chinese influence "is not a new one" and has been around for years, even decades.

He goes on saying that the Chinese have been trying to infiltrate universities and businesses to steal intellectual property, as well as influencing government institutions.

"We need to be super vigilant," he says, and "publicly expose Chinese infiltration when it happens".

Philp goes on to say that his party would introduce a "hard, low cap on legal migration".

This means they would limit the number of migrants allowed into the UK through official channels, like obtaining a visa.

He says they would enshrine this number in law, so the UK would "simply stop issuing visas when the cap is reached, and there is no way to circumvent that".

When asked about the specific number, he can't provide an exact figure but says it would be "far, far lower" than recent projected figures, which showed a net migration figure of 350,000.

He argues that the current government has not set a cap.

Chris Philp says that when the UK government set up a returns agreement with Albania, it resulted in a 93% drop in Albanian nationals arriving by small boats.

Philp mentions that Albanians could be returned, but it's more difficult to return people from other countries. This is why a safe third country, like Rwanda, is necessary.

Would the Tories bring back the Rwanda plan if they regained power, asked Laura.

"Yes, a deterrent style scheme," the shadow home secretary says.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp says Labour "made a huge mistake" by cancelling the Rwanda scheme "before it even started".

Kuenssberg challenges him, pointing out there were legal challenges over the scheme, so he can't be certain any planes to Rwanda would have taken off.

Philp responds that the Conservatives passed the Safety of Rwanda Act to ensure those flights could proceed, and the first plane was set to depart on 24 July.

"And we know from Australia that these deterrents do work," he says.

Image source, Getty Images

Up next is Chris Philp, who has been shadow home secretary since the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, took up the role in November. He was one of Badenoch's staunch supporters during the leadership race this autumn.

Philp was first elected as MP for Croydon South in 2015. Before joining Parliament, he set up businesses in finance and travel.

Under the previous government he served as a Home Office minister.

"This is the first time we've spoken to you since the election," Laura says to Cooper, who is one of the few ministers from the previous Labour government that has returned this time around.

It's been "bumpy", Laura says, asking if it would have been better if her Labour colleagues had more experience.

"If you're asking me if it would have been better not to have had 14 years in opposition, I would strongly agree with you," Cooper replies, laughing. "Then people would have had more experience."

And with that, the interview ends.

Labour ditched the Tories' plans for the UK to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda when it came to power in July.

Cooper says the scheme was a "total failure" - Laura suggests we'll never know if that was the case as it never happened.

She asks the home secretary if the current government would be open to using other countries as sites to process asylum claims.

The home secretary says it will look at "whatever works", but insists it would have to meet "proper international standards" and be effective.

What about creating safe routes for people to come to this country, Laura asks.

Cooper says tackling the issue is about boosting law enforcement, bringing down the asylum backlog and "going after the criminal gangs".

Laura puts it to Cooper that the government isn't providing a "yardstick" or standard to assess its progress on tackling small boat crossings, implying it isn't a priority for them.

The home secretary disagrees, saying border security is "one of the foundational issues… and we've been clear we need to reduce both legal and illegal migration".

She goes on to say there's been a poor track record of promises from former home secretaries and prime ministers that haven't had a "proper plan".

"Are you asking people to be patient?" asks Laura.

Cooper says the government's being "clear and straight with people" about the complexity, insisting the "gimmicks didn’t work".

The home secretary agrees that the current levels of Channel crossings are dangerously high.

"These levels are far too high; it's dangerous what's happening," Yvette Cooper says.

She says "of course" the government wants to see boat crossings come down as rapidly as possible.

"But what we're not going to do is deal with this by slogans," she says, referencing the previous Sunak government's pledge to "stop the boats" within a year.

Image source, Reuters

Laura presses the home secretary for a second time: “When will people see a difference?”

Cooper refuses to be drawn on setting out a timetable and instead says the government is working to reduce the asylum backlog.

The rules have to be “respected and enforced”, she says, “they just haven’t been for far too long.”