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Kwasi Kwarteng interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg
Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, is now being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg.
Q: The pound fell to its lowest level for years after your statement, and the cost of government borrowing went up. Are you worried about the reaction?
Kwarteng says he is focused on growing the economy. That is what the statement was all about.
If he can get business back on its feet, “we can get this country moving”.
Q: But you must have been nervous?
Kwarteng says he is focused on the medium term and the long term.
What was unsustainable was having tax at a 70-year high.
Q: Liz Truss says she is prepared to take unpopular decisions. What would you be willing do do that is unpopular?
Starmer says he has been willing to do that in the Labour party. He has picked it up and put it in a different place. He cites the internal party changes agreed last year as an example.
Q: Are voters who went to the Tories in 2019 coming back to you?
Starmer says he does see signs of that happening.
It was happening in the local elections.
But he is not complacent, he says. The party needs to do much more.
But we heading in the right direction? Yes.
Starmer says the hope for a Labour government in the party has turned into a belief that there will be a Labour government.
Starmer confirms Labour could keep basic rate income tax cut to 19%, but reinstate 45% top rate
Q: In government would you reinstate the 45% rate of tax?
Yes, says Starmer. He says he would reverse the decision the government took on Friday. He is “absolutely clear” on that.
Q: And would you reverse the basic rate tax cut to 19%?
Starmer says he would not reverse that. He says he has long argued that the government should cut the tax burden for working people. That is why Labour opposed the national insurance increase in the first place, he says.
Starmer says best thing he can do for workers striking for higher pay is secure Labour election victory
Q: Should people be able to expect pay to rise in line with inflation?
Starmer says of course people want their wages to go up.
Prices are going up. It is understandable that people want wages to match.
He says Labour would asks the Low Pay Commission to consider the cost of living, as well as average wages, when setting the living wage.
He says it is reasonable for unions to want to negotiate a pay rise. It is not for him to decide what the should be asking for.
Q: Do you back people going on strike if they do not get the pay rises they want?
Starmer says people go on strike as a last resort. He supports their right to go on strike.
But he wants to see strikes resolved.
Q: So why are you not supporting strikers?
Kuenssberg plays a clip of workers at Peel Ports in Liverpool saying Starmer should be taking their side.
Starmer says the most important thing he can do for people on strike is usher in a Labour government.
A Labour government would legislate for fair ways to settle these disputes.
Starmer is now talking about the energy plan announced overnight. (See 8.24am.)
He says he wants to make the UK less reliable on foreign energy.
But on Friday wind generation was operating at 15% of capacity because it was not windy. Don’t you need fossil fuels as a backup.
Starmer says of course it is going to be difficult.
He says fossil fuels might be needed as a fallback. But he thinks electricity can be generated by clean energy by 2030.
Starmer says two million homes would have be insulated if the government had set up a proper insulation scheme when Labour called for one.
He says he has visited homes insulated under schemes like this. Their bills are practically nothing.
Keir Starmer interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg
Keir Starmer is being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg.
He says the mini-budget was “very risky”, and driven by a “wrong-headed” argument that giving money to the rich would lead to it trickling down.
Q: The govenrment says it will freeze energy bills for two years. Would you do that?
Starmer says his proposal is for six months.
He says Labour committed to this before the government announced its plan.
In April Labour will look at what the situation is.
Q: Don’t people need certainty now?
Starmer says people also need to know who will pay for it. When they learn the energy companies are making excess profits of £170bn, and the government is not taxing them, they back a windfall tax.
Burnham says mini-budget was ‘flagrant act of vandalism on social cohesion of this country’
In his interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge, Andy Burnham said he could barely believe the mini-budget. People in Greater Manchester were cutting back on food because they can barely afford to eat, he said. And the Tories were cutting taxes for the rich.
He said the mini-budget was “a flagrant act of vandalism on the social cohesion of this country”.
Labour would not reverse cut in basic rate of income tax to 19%, Miliband says
Q: Does Labour support cutting the 45% top rate of income tax?
Miliband says that cutting the 45% rate is the wrong thing to do.
We’re going to be consistent in our election manifesto with our opposition to the 45p tax cut. We think it is the wrong thing to do for the country.
Q: What about cutting the basic rate to 19p in the pound?
Miliband replies:
No, we don’t think that should be reversed. Remember, we are talking about this basic rate cut. People start paying that at £12,500.
Q: So you disagree with Andy Burnham?
Miliband says he does not think that tax cut should be reversed. “We won’t be reversing that, no.”
Miliband says Labour will be announcing a series of policies that would promote growth.
The Tories want to promote growth through tax cuts for the rich. Labour says growth has to be built from the ground up.
Q: But tax cuts can promote growth?
Miliband does not accept this. He says the IMF – “hardly a group of loony lefties” – says increasing the incomes of the wealthiest does not lead to high growth. In fact, it says the opposite, he says.
Ed Miliband is being interviewed by Sophy Ridge now.
He says 10 years ago he would have argued for green energy on the grounds it was the ethical choice.
Now he is arguing for it as the ethical choice and the economic choice.
Q: If you were focusing on affordability, you would want to increase extraction from the North Sea, wouldn’t you?
Miliband does not accept that. He says the price of gas is set globally. He says the UK has to use North Sea gas.
But fracking, or a dash for gas, won’t bring down the price of gas, he says.
Burnham says, as he has become more experienced as a politician, he has “stopped speaking in code”.
He says that approach would be a “helpful blast of reality” at Westminster.
Q: If you stood for the leadership, would you be able to campaign better now than last time.
Burnham reminds Ridge he lost a leadership contest not just once, but twice.
But he says he thinks he is a better politician now.
The interview is now over.
Q: Are you tempted to return to Westminster? There will be a byelection in West Lancashire.
Burnham says he has committed to serve a full second term as mayor of Greater Manchester. But he would not rule out returning after that.
Burnham says Labour should back electoral reform
Burnham says he would go as far as to call the mini-budget “immoral”.
He is supporting Keir Starmer, he says. Labour has a sustained and clear lead in the polls. That is a significant achievement, he says.
He says he is disappointed to hear Starmer rule out electoral reform. Starmer should listen to the mood of conference on this. (Delegates may well pass a motion calling for proportional representation.) He says what happened over the summer, with the Tory leadership, illustrated the need for electoral reform.
Burnham says this is the first party conference since 2010 when it has been more likely than not that Labour will form a government in the next one or two years.
Q: So should Labour commit to reversing the 1p in the pound cut in income tax, and the abolition of the 45% rate?
Burnham says he is saying that. He thinks this is not the time for tax cuts.
But he says that does not mean Labour should not be putting money in people’s pockets.
Burnham says Labour should commit to reversing tax cuts in mini-budget
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is being interviewed on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.
Q: Should Labour commit to reversing those tax cuts?
Burnham says this was not a time for tax cuts.
Q: Should Labour commit to reversing them?
Burnham says he thinks he answered this.
Q: So should they commit to reversing them?
“They should,”, says Burham.
Keir Starmer says Labour would deliver zero-carbon electricity system by 2030 as party conference opens
Good morning. The Labour party conference opens in Liverpool this morning. The conference slogan is “A Fairer, Greener Future” and the party is fleshing that out this morning with the release of a plan for clean power by 2030. My Observer colleagues Toby Helm, Andrew Rawnsley and Phillip Inman have the details here.
They report:
[Keir] Starmer says the move – far more ambitious than any green policy advanced by the Tories and the most far-reaching of his leadership so far – would release the British people from the mercy of “dictators” such as Russian president Vladimir Putin over energy bills.
It would also, he says, cut hundreds of pounds off annual household energy bills “for good”, create up to half a million UK jobs, and make this country the first to have a zero-emission power system …
The idea at its core is to build a self-sufficient power system run entirely by cheap, homegrown renewables and nuclear, by the end of the decade. This, they argue, would also allow the country to become a major energy exporter.
In its briefing on the plan Labour says it wants to deliver a zero-carbon electricity system by 2030. It says it would:
1) Cut energy bills for good, saving UK households £93bn over the rest of this decade; or a saving of £475 per household every year until 2030.
2) Make the UK energy independent, freeing the UK from being exposed to the fluctuations of the global gas market, which has been too-easily manipulated by Vladimir Putin and petrostates.
3) Reindustrialise the UK, supporting the creation of over 200,000 direct jobs and up to 260,000-300,000 indirect jobs over the decade.
4) Tackle the climate crisis to leave a better world for our children by making the UK the first major economy to have a zero-emission power system.
Normally the main political parties observer an unofficial non-aggression pact during party conference season, and while the Labour conference is on, the Tories stay relatively quiet, and vice versa. But this week is likely to be different, because politics is still reeling from the impact of the mini-budget on Friday and there is a lot of Conservative party news in the papers. The Tories have been briefing about further tax cuts being likely next year, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, will be on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. His comments could overshadow what Starmer has to say.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for climate change and net zero, are interviewed on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.
9am: Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, and Keir Starmer, the Labour leader are interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuensseberg.
10.45am: The Labour conference opens with a tribute to the Queen from Keir Starmer, followed by delegates singing the national anthem..
11.25am: Angela Rayner, the deputy Lablour leader, speaks.
11.40am: David Evans, the general secretary, speaks.
11.50am: Anneliese Dodds, the party chair, speaks.
2.15pm: Delegates debate constitutional amendments.
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