Jenrick and Badenoch face off in GB News Tory leadership showdown – UK politics live | Politics

Jenrick is now being asked about how he would tackle the housing crisis.

“There are too few homes and too many young people trapped in their childhood bedrooms,” he says. He suggests making the “big cities” even denser by building on brownfield sites.”

He adds: “We’ve got to get a new generation of young people to believe in us, to support us and to vote for us.”

The first question from the audience is how to restore respect for the Conservative party after it’s recent trouncing at the ballot box.

Jenrick says “I’m not just standing to be the leader of the opposition, I want to be the next prime minister” to muted applause.

He raises immigration as the main issue facing Britain right now but it challenged by Hope on his own record in government, when immigration into Britain “ballooned”.

Jenrick says he is in favour of capping migration to “the tens of thousands or lower”. He says he resigned from the cabinet over both legal and illegal migration.

“I don’t want our party to keep making and breaking promises,” he says.

Good evening. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest from the showdown between the final two candidates to become Tory leader this evening.

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick will be put through their paces by moderator Christopher Hope, in front of an audience of Conservative members, on GB News from 7pm.

Both candidates – who will be hoping to show the nation just why they are the best the Tories have to offer – will get five minutes to deliver an opening statement.

They will then take questions from Hope and the GB News studio audience. It’s going to be a long two hours but let’s hope it gives us some sort of insight, one way or another, into what the Conservative party has to offer in 2024.

I’ll be bringing you all the key moments and top lines from what is the fourth Tory leadership contest in almost as many years.

Welfare watchdog criticises government for rushing winter fuel payment cut, and calls for full impact assessment

Andrew Sparrow

A welfare watchdog has criticised the government’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for most pensioners.

The social security advisory committee says the government should have carried out a full impact assessment before going ahead with the policy, and it says it is worried about the impact the policy will have on pensioner poverty.

It also says it is not convinced by the government’s argument that it is addressing this issue by encouraging more people to apply for pension credit, a benefit that enables people who qualify to carry on getting the winter fuel payment.

The committee, an independent statutory body set up to advise the government on welfare, has set out its comments in a letter to Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary. The letter was sent on 20 September, but was only published today.

In the letter Stephen Brien, the committee’s chair, says:

We were disappointed that an assessment of impact was not presented to the committee alongside the regulations on 11 September 2024. It has subsequently been confirmed that a full assessment of impact does not exist, with the prime minister commenting that it was not legally necessary and that “The impact will be mitigated by pension credit, by the housing benefit”^.

Given the scale of pensioners who will be affected by this change, and the speed at which it is being introduced, we are not similarly reassured that this will be the case and are of the firm view that a more detailed assessment is urgently required, in particular, on the potential poverty impact.

The committee makes various other recommendations, including saying people on full pensioner housing benefit should also continue to get the winter fuel payment, and demanding an assurance that enough staff are available to process new pension crediti claims.

That is all from me for today. My colleague Tom Ambrose is taking over now.

Nigel Farage has used a team of three US advisers to help him with “perception management” and public relations in America, as well as with settling a $3,500 hotel bill this summer, new documents show, Rowena Mason reports.

The House of Commons wants you to tell it what it can do to make the place better. In particular, it wants to hear suggestions covering:

-driving up standards;

-improving culture and working practices; and

-reforming parliamentary procedures to make the House of Commons more effective.

The invitation is not just aimed at Guardian readers (although I am sure many of you have strong, and sensible, views, and I would encourage you to submit them). The Commons modernisation committee has opened a consultation inviting groups and individuals, inside parliament and outside, to propose ideas for reform.

As it explains in its news release, submissions should be no more than 2,500 words and they should cover:

1) What topic(s) do you think the modernisation committee should prioritise and how do they link to one or more of the strategic aims set out in the leader’s memorandum?

2) Why would the topic(s) benefit from the attention of the modernisation committee?

3) Are you aware of examples from other parliaments relevant to the topic(s) which may be interesting for the modernisation committee to consider?

4) Is there any existing work relevant to the topic(s) which you think the modernisation committee can build on?

The committee is chaired by Lucy Powell, leader of the Commons. In a memo last month she set out some proposals for reform, including banning MPs from paid media work, but there are so many other topics it could cover it is hard to know where to start.

You can submit ideas here. They have to be in before 3pm on 16 December.

Paul Johnson is leaving his post as director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank next year. He has secured the dream job aspired to by members of the liberal intelligentsia elite – head of an Oxford college. Richard Partington has the story.

At PMQs yesterday Keir Starmer was repeatedly asked by Rishi Sunak about Labour’s approach to China. Starmer implied that his government would be just as robust as the last Conservative government, and he was critical of Beijing over its hostility towards Taiwan, its suppression of rights in Hong Kong and its links with Russia.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is due to visit China from tomorrow and Amnesty International UK has issued a statement saying it hopes Lammy is just as robust in private. Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty’s chief executive, said:

This visit is a crucial opportunity for the foreign secretary to demonstrate the government’s true commitment to challenging publicly and privately Beijing’s brutal suppression of human rights in China and Hong Kong.

Behind closed doors but also in public, David Lammy needs to tackle the Chinese government over its systematic, industrial-scale repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, its widespread imprisonment of peaceful activists and its completely unacceptable intimidation of students and campaigners here in the UK.

The prime minister’s statement that the immediate release of the unjustly-imprisoned UK businessman Jimmy Lai is a UK priority is welcome, and Mr Lammy should also seek to secure the immediate release of fellow prisoners of conscience Hong Kong lawyer-activist Chow Hang-tung and Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, as well as the long-held Uighur economist Ilham Tohti and #MeToo activists Sophia Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing.

Throughout this trip, the Government should ensure that talks on trade and security relations with China aren’t pursued at the expense of human rights.