Liz Truss says her critics are ‘declinist’ before Laura Kuenssberg interview at opening of Tory conference – UK politics live

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Liz Truss says interest rates are going up around the world.

She understands people’s worries about. And she says she would have prepared people for what would be in the mini-budget more effectively.

I do accept we should have laid the ground better. I have learnt from that. I will make sure in future we do a better job of laying the ground.

Laura Kuenssberg is now interviewing Liz Truss on the BBC.

Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, is a guest on the programme. He says he wants to hear Truss reassure people. And he says Truss needs to show people she “shares their values”.

There were “a number of mistakes” made in the mini-budget, he says. But he says there is time to correct them.

Sophy Ridge is now interviewing Jake Berry, the Tory chair, on Sky.

Q: Did you have a drinks celebration with Tory donors after the mini-budget?

Berry says he was there. It was an event for donors. It was not a specific event for hedge fund managers. But he knows that at least one hedge fund manager was there.

Q: The Sunday Times says, as the markets were crashing, you were at the home of a Tory donors, with hedge fund managers and financiers who may have made money from the fall of the pound. How was that right?

Berry says he does not know that anyone did make money from the fall in the pound. And by the end of the week the pound was up, he says.

Q: How was the chancellor’s mood as he was drinking champagne?

Berry says he does not think Kwasi Kwarteng was drinking champagne. He thinks he was having a soft drink.

Q: The Sunday Times says Kwarteng gave “insights” into future policy at the event.

Berry says he did not hear that. Kwarteng gave a speech at the event. In that speech, he did not give any insight into future plans. And Berry says he is “sure” Kwarteng did not do that in private conversations either.

Here are some more lines from Liz Truss‘s interview with Edward Malnick in the Sunday Telegraph.

Truss revealed that she wants to extend the number for firms that qualify as a small business, allowing them to benefit from lighter regulation. She said:

One of the things we’ll be announcing is raising the definition of a small business, in terms of regulation, from 250 employees to 500 employees.

Truss said this move would affect 40,000 firms, and “make it easier for them to get on with their business”.

She confirmed that she wanted to increase certain types of immigration into the UK – although she rejected claims that low-skilled immigration would rise. Malnick reports:

The prime minister rejects claims that she wants to relax immigration rules to increase the number of low skilled migrants coming to the UK, as part of her plan to boost growth. “That’s not true,” she insists, with a frown.

But she appears to confirm that the government will increase the number of seasonal agricultural workers and other “high skilled people” given permission to work in Britain.

“What we want to do, and the home secretary will be laying out more details on this, is make sure we’ve got the right mix of people coming into the country. So the high-skilled people that will contribute to the economy – I have also mentioned previously seasonal agricultural workers, for example, to help with farming. But this is not about getting lots of low skilled workers in, it’s getting people who will contribute to the economy.”

This is confusing beacuse normally seasonal agricultural workers would be described as low-skilled immigrants (even though, done properly, their work requires considerable skill).

She wants to increase the number of childminders available by creating new childminder agencies, the Sunday Telegraph says. Malnick reports:

The Telegraph can also reveal today that one plan being worked up is to increase the number of childminders by boosting the number of specialist childminder agencies. The agencies are registered to be inspected by Ofsted, reducing the administrative burden on individual workers. Ms Truss championed the idea while childcare minister between 2012 in 2014.

She accepted that people would find change “worrying” but she said sticking ith the economic status quo was not an option. She said:

Change is always something that people might find worrying. But what I’m fundamentally saying is we do have to change, and the status quo isn’t an option …

We made promises to people in 2019 that things would be different. And what does that mean? It means more opportunities, higher wages, more investment, and those are all the things that I am seeking to unlock.

Of course, there’ll be resistance to that. Because there is quite a strong consensus around what I describe as a high tax, low growth economy. But ultimately [with] a high tax low growth economy the country becomes poorer.

She defended the decision not to ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to publish a new economic forecast with the mini-budget, implying there was not time. She said:

During Covid we acted quickly and decisively on things like the furlough scheme without an OBR forecast, because the situation was urgent. And I and the chancellor believe that the situation is equally urgent, now, and here.

But the OBR has said it would have had time to publish a forecast alongside the mini-budget, although it has conceded that it would not have been as detailed as normal, because of the lack of time.

She confirmed she will be attending the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) in Prague later this week. She said:

The reason I’m going to Prague on Thursday is I want to be talking to counterparts across Europe, including ones that are in the European Union and ones that aren’t – it’s a wide variety of countries – about migration, and how we collectively deal with migration. It’s not a problem Britain can solve on our own.

We have a lot of countries people are travelling through to get to Britain. So we need a better solution on that, we need to deal with the problem upstream, so that’s what we’ll be talking about, but also energy.

Good morning. During the Tory leadership contest an internal Labour party document, leaked to the media, said that the election of Liz Truss could deliver a 10-point boost in the polls. The briefing, which was received with some scepticism, was intended to stop Labour getting complacent, and it was based on historical figures showing that in the past having a new prime minister normally has resulted in a bounce in the poll. It is now clear that the memo was much more prophetic than anyone realised – only it is Labour that is benefiting from the bounce, not the Conservative party, and that the bounce is worth much more than 10 points.

Of course, it was the mini-budget, not Truss’s election as Tory leader, that made the difference, but that distinction won’t be much consolation to Conservative MPs as they start their conference today in Birmingham. The main divide in the party at the moment is probably between those who think that the damage done by the mini-budget to Truss’s premiership is terminal, and those who think there is some slight chance of recovery.

Here are the latest polling figures from Opinium, which are covered in the Observer.

Truss will be on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg later. (The programme starts at 8.30am, but Truss will probably be on soon after 9am.) It will be her first in-depth TV interview since the mini-budget debacle, and she will be hoping it goes better than her local radio media round on Thursday.

She has given an indication of what she is likely to say in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in which she insisted that she was going to retain all the measures announced in the mini-budget (many Tories want her to shelve, or abandon, the abolition of the 45% top rate of income tax) and said that Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, was doing “an excellent job”.

Stressing her belief that economic change is necessary, and her desire to “bring people with me on this journey”, Truss also claimed her critics were “declinist”. She told the Sunday Telegraph:

It’s a declinist mentality, the idea that Britain’s best days are behind us and that all this is about is managing the distribution between people, rather than growing the size of the pie. I believe we can grow the size of the pie. But we need to take the tough decisions to do that.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Jake Berry, chair of the Conservative party, is among the guest on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

8.30am: Liz Truss is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is also being interviewed.

From 12pm: Conference fringe events start.

3pm: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, takes part in an ‘in conversation’ fringe event organised by the Tory thinktank Onward.

4pm: The formal conference proceedings start, with speeches from Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons; Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands; Jake Barry, chair of the party; Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland secretary; Douglas Ross, Scottish Conservative leader; Andrew RT Davies, Welsh Conservative leader; Robert Buckland, Welsh secretary; and Ben Wallace, defence secretary.

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