Image source, Reuters

Thanks for staying with us as we've followed PM Rishi Sunak's interview on Laura Kuenssberg as the Conservative Party conference gets under way in Manchester.

HS2, net zero policies and tax were the big issues, and we can expect them to come up time and again over the next four days.

We'll leave the conference attendees in peace for now to browse the stalls for Keir Starmer flip-flops and Margaret Thatcher aprons - but we'll be back later this afternoon.

Defence Minister Grant Shapps's speech to the conference is due at 15:00, followed by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. Join us from 14:45 for live updates.

Need a quick recap? Here's what's been going on:

• Rish Sunak still won't say if the HS2 line from Birminghan to Manchester will be scrapped despite being asked for a yes no answer by Laura Kuenssberg
• Instead the PM was keen to discuss his plans to combat what he terms as a "war on motorists"

• He also defended his net zero measures calling them pragmatic, proportionate and realistic and insisted they weren't a knee-jerk reaction to their narrow win in the Uxbridge by-election
• Labour's Wes Streeting defended his party's stance on private schools after ditching plans to remove their charitable status
• Elsewhere Michael Gove and Dame Priti Patel banged the drum for tax cuts despite the PM refusing to say if they are in the pipeline
• And finally, there was a little light relief from Jon Culshaw with a few choice impressions

Tricky task for Sunak as conference kicks offpublished at 11:54 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

11:54 BST 1 October 2023

Nick Eardley
Reporting from Manchester

The annual party conferences are a chance to set the political agenda.

That’s what Rishi Sunak is going to try and do over the next few days.

With the Conservatives well behind Labour in the polls, he’s got a big task on his hands.

But No 10 is hoping he can persuade voters he’s the best man to make the big political calls the country needs; the long-term decisions that will get the UK on the front foot.

But there are two things making that difficult this morning.

Number one, he’s not the only one trying to set the political agenda. There are many Conservative MPs who want Sunak to be bolder and promise tax cuts before a general election.

They’re going to spend the next few days making that argument pretty loudly. Some of them are pretty prominent - expect Liz Truss to pop up over the next 24 hours making the case for lower tax.

She might have had a torrid time as PM, but some MPs here still think she had the right ideas.

And number two, Sunak isn’t always up for discussing all the big long term decisions he needs to make.

He stonewalled questions on HS2 this morning - despite many businesses and politicians wanting a firm answer on whether the line to Manchester is being axed.

If you’re going to promise voters you will tackle the big questions facing the country, you don’t always get to decide what those questions are.

Kate Whannel
Reporting from the conference

Image source, Reuters

The conference centre isn’t formally open yet but there is already a gathering of the super keen waiting for the doors to open - and trying to shelter from the Mancunian rain.

When they are let in, conference delegates will be greeted by a huge map of all the parliamentary constituencies in the UK laid out on the floor. “Stand in your seat, selfies encouraged” the sign says.

Inside the main hall itself it’s a flurry of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap as people rush to get their stalls ready before opening time.

The first display is selling Tory merch. Products include a Margaret Thatcher themed cooking apron (“The lady is not for burning”). And it may only be October, but Thatcher themed Christmas baubles (“ho, ho, ho, no, no,no") are also on display.

Other stalls are also hoping the novelty factor will encourage visitors to their displays.

Renewables UK has a coffee machine that can draw your face on the top of your coffee.

Sainsburys has a scaletrix track to show the journey its milk takes, from farmer to your fridge.

And the charity Guide Dogs has a pinball machine, where the ball has to navigate between the hazards blind people face on the streets - electric bikes, fallen trees and bins (five not seven).

No, inflation is not a taxpublished at 11:35 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

11:35 BST 1 October 2023

Sunak would not commit to cut taxes but instead wanted to focus on inflation, saying: “The best tax cut I can deliver for the British people is to halve inflation.”

When challenged on this he repeated: “Inflation is a tax.”

That’s not the case, although clearly high inflation can make people worse off.

A tax is a charge or levy made by a government, typically to pay for services.

Sunak also wanted to point out his record in reducing inflation over the past year. He said: “I spent the first year stabilising things making progress on bringing inflation down.”

Inflation has come down since Sunak made the pledged to halve it from 10.7% (as it was in the three-month period between October and December 2022) to 5.3% by the end of 2023, using a measure called the Consumer Prices Index, which tracks the price of a typical basket of goods).

Despite the recent falls, analysts remain divided about whether the PM's goal will be achieved.

However, the Bank of England said in August, external that it expected inflation to be about 5% by the end of the year.

Core inflation, which strips out factors like energy and food (much more subject to global price swings), has seen only a modest reduction.

On the programme, Rishi Sunak talked about "imposing blanket speed restrictions" - saying "that's what we've seen in Wales, from the Labour government there".

We've had a response from the Welsh government, who say: “It is profoundly disappointing the prime minister is inadvertently or intentionally, choosing to mislead people about the introduction of 20mph."

The statement goes on to add: "It is not a blanket restriction. Speed limits on a great number of roads in Wales are unchanged and journey times take around a minute longer. This will save lives and make our communities safer.”

You can read more about the 20mph restrictions in Wales our explainer here.

Image source, Reuters

While we've been concentrating on Laura Kuenssberg's guests some other high-profile politicians have been appearing on other TV outlets this morning.

Former home secretary Priti Patel talked about tax when appearing on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News.

She said she wanted to see "taxes come down, income tax in particular" and that she would also support scrapping inheritance tax calling it "regressive and punitive."

Patel also appeared to criticise Home Secretary Suella Braverman's comments on multiculturalism, saying integration by ethnic minorities is something to be "proud of".

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove spoke on the same show, saying he wants tax cuts announced before the election to ease the tax burden on working households.

Gove suggested the focus should be on cutting taxes on work - such as income tax or national insurance.

"We should incentivise people to work harder, we should make sure they are better rewarded for the enterprise, the effort, the endeavour that they put in," he said.

Sunak was asked about Gove's comments by Laura Kuenssberg - you can watch what he said below.

Among the panellists on today's show was impressionist Jon Culshaw.

As the programme came to a close, Laura Kuenssberg asked him to do what he does best.

Watch how the prime minister responded...

• When asked about 20 mph zones, Sunak said there cannot be "a war on motorists", and that lower speed limits needed public consent
• He wouldn't confirm whether or not the HS2 rail line would reach Manchester - saying he "won't comment on speculation"
• He again said there were "spades in the ground" (on the first phase of HS2) but wouldn't give an answer when asked "yes or no" whether the Manchester plans would change
• Meanwhile, Labour's Wes Streeting was pressed on Labour's changing private schools policy - and said the party is "bombproofing" its pledges

Sunak clearly doesn't believe bleak Tory predictionspublished at 10:03 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

10:03 BST 1 October 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

“The mood among Conservative MPs is really bleak,” one Conservative backbencher who had reluctantly travelled up to Manchester for their party conference told me last night. “Most of us can see the polls and realise we are doomed.”

It is abundantly clear from this morning’s interview that Rishi Sunak doesn’t agree.

After almost a year of prioritising calm - both economic and political - the prime minister is evidently enjoying moving on to a new period where he is doing more to set out his vision for the future.

At times this morning’s interview was pretty spiky. Sunak appeared to enjoy the clashes, and the opportunity to defend controversial measures on net zero and motorists - decisions, by the way, he will have made in the knowledge that they would prove controversial.

Expect more of that this week: attempts to draw clear dividing lines with the Labour Party and spell out more of what Mr Sunak would do with a full term as prime minister.

Each of those new policies is also an attempt to prove wrong fatalistic Conservative MPs who think the election result is already a done deal.

Former president of the Council for National Parks, actor Brian Blessed is the programme’s final guest this morning and describes the Sycamore Gap tree being cut down as being “beyond comprehension”.

Blessed says he would like to plant another sycamore nearby and let the stump regrow.“The tree is not dead”, he says.“Give it company and plant another tree, 200 yards away, it will talk to it”.

Blessed ends his interview by singing Paul Robeson’s rendition of the poem Trees by Joyce Kilmer.

Pressed again about changes to previous policies, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting Labour are "bombproofing" all of their pledges.

Laura asks if that means some other policies - like the charitable status on private schools - might be ditched.

He insists that his party wants to make policies that people can believe in, with promises they can keep.

He says there is a "high bar" for policies in the manifesto, they need to be "credible" - "can it be delivered, will it make a real difference to people's lives?"

Kuenssberg moves on to an interview with Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.

Asked why Labour are changing their mind on private schools - after the party said this week that its policy is to remove tax breaks rather than strip them of charitable status.

Streeting says "what matters is what works".

He says when it comes to hard choices - like VAT on private schools - he says that money could be better invested in the education "of the 93%".

He says that isn't just his view - it was Michael Gove who said "it wasn't fair we were subsidising the education of oligarchs". Streeting adds Gove has had 13 years in the cabinet to "sort this out".

Pressed again about the change in the policy, he says "we've looked carefully at what would work to achieve the goal that we want".

Still no clarity on the future of HS2 from PMpublished at 09:44 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

09:44 BST 1 October 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Most people in Westminster expected an announcement on HS2 to have happened by now.

Speculation swirling around the leg of the rail line running from Birmingham to Manchester could hardly have been less helpfully timed given that the Conservative conference is taking place in Manchester.

And in a piece of amusing symbolism, the conference venue is a disused railway station.

Many therefore assumed that Rishi Sunak would have got the announcement on HS2 out of the way by now. He did not - and there was no more clarity in this morning’s interview either.

He is perhaps the only person in the country who knows unequivocally what will happen to the project - and yet he simply said he could not comment on “speculation”.

It appears No 10 have concluded that they can get through the four days of conference without clarifying the future of HS2. After all, as a senior government source pointed out to me: “We are in Manchester - but we are not speaking to Manchester, we are speaking to the country."

With no announcement this week, it may be that the fate of HS2 is not clarified until Jeremy Hunt's Autumn Statement - which won’t take place until November 22.

We're now hearing from Dame Helen Mirren.

Laura asks whether she understands why some people find it uncomfortable for a non-Jewish actor to portray a Jewish person, as Mirren does in the upcoming film about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

The Oscar winner - who is not Jewish - responds that she can sometimes see their point but sometimes cannot.

“I can’t see who in this room is Jewish - we are all such an amazing mix,” she says.

“I think the whole question of assuming a certain physiognomy because you're playing a particular race, there is something offensive about that."

Reacting to that interview, Fraser Nelson says this a different Sunak from a year ago.

He's "got an agenda, more palpable than a year ago, he almost welcomes the battle", Nelson says.

Picking up on Sunak's HS2 comments, Jon Culshaw says the non-answering of the questions becomes the answer.

"Why not say 'we're thinking about it, we can't really tell you'," he asks.

Has the UK decarbonised faster than any other country?published at 09:39 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

09:39 BST 1 October 2023

Rishi Sunak claimed the UK has "already decarbonised faster than any other major G7 economy".

The G7 (Group of Seven) is an organisation of the world's seven largest "advanced" economies, which includes the UK.

It is true the UK has decarbonised faster than other countries in this group when comparing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions since 1990.

UK emissions have fallen by 48.7% up to the end of 2022, external, according to government data.

This figure refers to greenhouse gas emissions within the UK. It doesn’t account for the UK’s total carbon footprint, which includes emissions related to the manufacture of products that the UK imports from abroad, for example.

Germany is in second place among the G7, having cut its emissions by 40.4% since 1990, external.

However, Germany has reduced its emissions at a faster rate than the UK since 2016 - the year after the key international Paris climate agreement was signed.

In June, the government’s climate advisers said the UK was “no longer a world leader” on climate action.

They cited a “lack of urgency” that puts future decarbonisation targets at risk.

Sunak’s rhetoric more aggressive - but policy detail doesn't quite matchpublished at 09:37 British Summer Time 1 October 2023

09:37 BST 1 October 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

As the PM has entered a new phase of bolder political announcements, his rhetoric has become more aggressive too.

In this morning’s interview he made clear that he believes there is a “war on motorists” being waged by local politicians across Britain - including, as he said more than once, the Labour government in Wales, which cut the default speed limit in residential areas to 20mph last month.

But under pressure from Laura Kuenssberg about what precisely the government would do to stop 20mph zones being expanded, the prime minister was vague.

He said that new speed limits need to be “done with consent”.

Similarly, when asked whether he would stop lower speed limits being introduced, including where Conservative councils propose them, Sunak replied that he wanted to “make sure that councils are doing things with the support and consent of their local communities”.

Does it matter if the detail of the policy does not necessarily quite match the strength of the rhetoric? Downing Street strategists will think not.

General elections are often about who the public sees as being on their side. Sunak will hope that by arguing that life is becoming too hard for drivers, he is showing crucial swing voters that he understands them better than Sir Keir Starmer does.

As the interview comes to a close, Sunak says he will lead the country to a better place, which involves "doing things differently".

Sunak says he wants to "bring the change", adding "that's what the country wants".

Asked if he admired anything about Keir Starmer, he says he "isn't interested in personalities", and he is interested in clear policies and a "clear direction of travel".