George Bowden
Reporting from the debate

There's no time wasted for supportive MPs - who are immediately speaking to journalists about their candidates' performance in tonight's debate.

The practice - known as spinning and popularised by the BBC sitcom The Thick of It - sees the MPs speak to reporters about what they believe are the key takeaways from the debate.

Our political correspondent Ione Wells has been hearing from the Conservative MP Richard Holden - who is campaigning for Rishi Sunak.

Meanwhile BBC Two's Newsnight is speaking to Jonathan Gullis - supporting Liz Truss.

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And with that somewhat civil ending, and warm words between the pair, the debate is over.

Now to the spin room, where both camps are going to be claiming victory for their candidate.

We'll bring you all the reaction.

Sophie Raworth asks what Liz Truss thinks Rishi Sunak needs to work on to become a better prime minister.

She says working with Rishi Sunak has been "fantastic" and they've always "got on well" and they both share "a belief in Britain". She says she thinks he should "take more risks and be bolder".

Sophie Raworth reverses the question for Rishi Sunak.

He says this question was asked in another debate and he's "not going to do it again", and answer it. "There is far more that unites us than divides us," he states.

Asked if they would publish their tax affairs if they become PM, both say yes swiftly.

Then pressed on what marks out of 10 they would give Boris Johnson for his time in No 10 (to groans from the audience), Truss says seven.

Sunak initially doesn't put a figure on it, but then says on the issues of winning an election and "delivering a solution to Brexit" he says it was 10 out of 10.

He adds "you've got to give the guy credit, no one else could probably have done that" - to a large round of applause from the audience.

There's just time for some quick-fire questions.

Truss and Sunak are asked whether Brexit is to blame for long queues seen at the Port of Dover over the last several days.

"No," both reply in unison.

Next, they are asked if they would ban strikes on railways following disruption in recent weeks.

Again, both give the same answer - "yes".

Liz Truss is asked about minister Johnny Mercer's criticism that the contest is becoming "puerile" because of the mud being thrown by both sides.

She disagrees, saying they're having a "really serious discussion" about the future of the party and the country.

She says she wants that future to be about stimulating growth through low taxes.

Or - Sunak interjects - "passing the bill on to our children".

The BBC's Political Editor Chris Mason asks Rishi Sunak what his view is of Boris Johnson.

"He's one of the most remarkable people I've met," he says, including getting the country through the pandemic and Brexit.

He says that, for him, a point came where "enough was enough" and he had concerns "on the conduct side".

George Bowden
Reporting from the debate

As we reported a few minutes ago, Rishi Sunak was applauded after defending his background and private education.

His supporters in the spin room welcomed it with enthusiasm - akin to when your team gets a free kick, but not quite a goal.

Could they be planning to champion this later when they speak to journalists after the debate ends?

Reality Check

As we predicted earlier in the evening, Liz Truss defended her Brexit credentials, saying: "Since the referendum took place I've delivered dozens of trade deals."

The UK has secured trade agreements with more than 60 countries since the Brexit vote and Ms Truss served as International Trade Secretary from 2019-2021.

However, the vast majority are "rollover" deals - copying the terms of deals the UK already had when it was an EU member, rather than creating new benefits.

The UK has negotiated two new deals from scratch – with Australia and New Zealand. The government’s own estimate says the Australia deal could increase the UK's GDP by just 0.08% over 15 years, external.

More on this here.

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Now we're back to another dividing line - how the candidates voted in 2016.

On his backing of Brexit in 2016, Sunak says he supported the Leave campaign as a matter of principle.

He says he was told it would be "the end of my career" and adds "I went on and did it anyway".

"I believed it would be the right thing for this country and as prime minister that's what I would do for all of you, because I always act on principle."

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After earrings and suits, the debate turns to schooling - and there's a rare round of applause from the audience for Rishi Sunak.

The former chancellor says he's "certainly not going to apologise" for his private schooling – saying that the aspiration showed by his parents after migrating to the UK was a display of "Conservative values".

Truss delves into her own educational background. She explains that she was motivated to go into politics having seen a "lack of opportunities" for some of her peers at her comprehensive school in Yorkshire - where some children were let down by some "patchy education".

She says she was brought up in a left-wing household which helped shape her views towards education.

Ione Wells
Political Correspondent, at the debate

As we just reported, Liz Truss doesn’t specifically distance herself from comments made by her supporter Nadine Dorries.

One Sunak aide messages: "The cost of Liz's tax giveaways would buy 12 billion pairs of Claire's earrings."

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Chris Mason asks the candidates what they make of Liz Truss supporter Nadine Dorries' tweet today - contrasting Truss's "thrifty" earrings with Rishi Sunak's expensive shoes and suits.

Sunak says he has enormous respect for Liz, but Conservatives judge people by their character and actions - and he's proud to have helped some of the country's most vulnerable people while he was chancellor.

He adds he didn't grow up with money, his parents were immigrants - and he did well because of their hard work and sacrifices. He now wants to ensure everyone has the same opportunities.

Truss declines to disown Dorries's comments. But she says she has no issue with other people's clothes and is campaigning in a positive way about her experiences and ambitions.

She adds that Sunak has "fine dress sense", but - unlike the economy - this is not a serious issue in the leadership contest.

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Sophie Raworth asks what three things can be done to tackle the record temperatures the UK experienced last week.

Former chancellor Rishi Sunak says in his house, his daughters talk to him about how best to save energy and help the planet - with the benefit of energy efficiency being "it helps us save money".

Secondly, he says recycling is something his household "is obsessive about".

Thirdly, he says Britain can help solve climate change with amazing solutions and inventors.

Liz Truss says she "was an environmentalist before it was fashionable" and was campaigning about the ozone layer as a teenager.

She says she's "naturally a thrifty person" and using less helps the environment.

She says food waste is a "massive problem in this country" - and "we can all act" by doing things such as home insulation.

Reality Check

When asked how he would help households with the rising cost of living, Rishi Sunak focused on cutting energy bills by helping millions of homes with installing insulation.

However, over the last decade installation rates have fallen by 98%.

When Rishi Sunak was chancellor, the government scrapped the green homes grant scheme which was offering £10,000 to homes to help install insulation, after achieving just 10% of its target.

And two weeks later the Telegraph reported, external that the Treasury blocked proposals by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to expand the Energy Company Obligation – an energy efficiency scheme to help low income households.

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Asked if she would be willing to deploy the Royal Navy to the Black Sea to protect grain shipments coming out of Ukraine, Truss says she is not prepared for UK to become directly involved in the conflict

She adds the government has done as much as it can - noting the UK was the first to European send weapons and championed the "toughest possible sanctions on Russia" following the invasion.

She makes clear that as Ukraine is not a Nato member, and therefore protected by collective defence guarantees, it would be "wrong to directly deploy our troops and our resources" to the region.

Asked the same question, Sunak says the West has "put together some of the strongest economic standards the world has ever seen".

In a moment of rare unity tonight, he notes that the sweeping sanctions regime was a project both he and Truss worked together on.

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We're into the final quarter of tonight's debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

Here's some of what you've missed if you're just joining us:

Clash over tax cuts

• The candidates had their first big disagreement on - you guessed it - taxes, the most prominent issue that divides their visions of a UK under their leadership
• There was lots of talking over each other, especially from Sunak's side where he interrupted Truss's attempts to lay out her economic plan
• Sunak argued long-term solutions were needed to cure the UK's cost of living crisis

• Truss, on the other hand said she'd act immediately - reversing April's national insurance increase of 1.25p in the pound and introducing a "temporary moratorium" on the green levy to save people money on their energy bills

Jibe about Truss's Brexit record

• Truss accused Sunak of fearmongering over his warning that inflation and then interest rates would soar if she were PM
• But he responded by saying "only one of us was was on the Leave campaign"
• In 2016, Sunak voted Leave in the Brexit referendum while Truss voted Remain

Are British workers idlers?

• The BBC's Political Editor Chris Mason said in a book Liz Truss co-wrote, Britannia Unchained, that British workers were described as "amongst the worst idlers in the world, we work among the lowest hours, we retire early, our productivity is poor"
• "Every author wrote a different chapter, I wrote the chapter on education," she replied

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Sunak and Truss are now sparring on the subject of China – each accusing the other of being too close to Beijing in the past.

Answering a question from the BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam, Truss says she would "crack down" on Chinese-owned app TikTok.

The foreign secretary says her department has taken a tough stance on "authoritarian regimes".

Sunak also points to his track record in government – saying he worked to protect the country against alleged Chinese efforts to infiltrate British organisations and steal technology, while he worked as chancellor.

He calls China a "threat to national security".

George Bowden
Reporting from the debate

Supportive MPs waiting in the spin room are scribbling away during the debate, diligently taking notes as their favoured candidates battle it out next door.

Some are dividing their notes into two - one side for "Rishi" and the other for "Liz" - and then by the themes and topics that have been raised so far.

"Energy bills" and "tax" appear on one minister's notes.

Others appear to be writing key quotes from both candidates, too.

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Both candidates are asked how they would go further on levelling up poorer and richer areas of the country.

Rishi Sunak says he often visited Stoke when he was chancellor, and delivered on the regeneration of its town centre to the tune of £50m.

He says levelling up is also about increasing young people's skills and cutting taxes on business investment.

Liz Truss says what is needed is urgent action and spades in the ground, "not promises about tomorrow".

She pledges low-tax investment zones with simplified planning rules, and to challenge the "orthodoxy" stopping things happening quickly.

Truss says she's proved she "get things done" - whether it's new trade deals or standing up to Russia.