Key events
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Truss, unlike Sunak, refuses to say Johnson was to blame for his own downfall
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Truss says she would vote to end privileges committee inquiry into whether Johnson lied to MPs
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Truss takes questions
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Tories will be ‘absolutely hammered’ at election if they don’t target energy bills support on those most in need, says Sunak
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Sunak takes questions
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Sunak suggests as PM he would move some Downing Street staff to Darlington
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Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak poised to start Tory leadership hustings in Darlington
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Johnson says he is ‘absolutely confident’ government has ‘fiscal firepower’ it needs to help people with energy bills over winter
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Truss and Sunak must no longer ignore energy bills ‘cataclysm’, says money saving expert Martin Lewis
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Labour says it’s ‘complete disgrace’ that Britons at risk of power cuts this winter
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UK facing ‘planned power cuts’ amid shortages in winter, reports say
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MoD cancels plans to house up to 1,500 asylum seekers at former RAF base in North Yorkshire
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Sunak says he would prioritise pensioners and low-income families in energy bills support package
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No government can fully protect people from impact of rising energy bills, says Truss ally Ben Wallace
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Senior Tory hits out at ‘sort of terrorist campaign’ being waged by critics of inquiry into whether Johnson lied to Commons
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Truss accuses Sunak of being ‘declinist’ as she rejects claim her economic plan would be ‘electoral suicide’ for Tories
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Unite ballots healthcare workers on industrial action over ‘miserable’ pay offer
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‘Fundamental difference of opinion’ means leadership candidates cannot agree joint energy bills plan, says Sunak ally
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Truss and Sunak ‘living in a parallel universe’ by ignoring fuel bill crisis, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey claims
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UK energy bills forecast to hit £4,266 a year from January
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Sunak claims ‘efficiency savings’ could fund new energy bills support package in autumn
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Truss’s cost of living policies could be ‘electoral suicide note’ for Tories, says Raab
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Q: Would you go ahead with plans to cut the size of the armed forces?
Truss says she is committed to reviewing the defence and security review.
Q: Speaking as a farmer, a lot of us are worried about the trade deals you have done. Will the meat coming into the UK be to the same standards as British meat?
Truss says she thinks British beef and lamb is world beating. She got it back into the US.
She is proud of the trade deals with Australian and New Zealand, she says. She says she is glad the UK has righted the wrong done in the 1970s (when the UK entered the Common Market, hitting exports to the UK from Australia and New Zealand.)
Q: How are you going to get civil servants back into the office when people at the top are all remainers?
Truss says she is good at getting things done.
Truss says she believes biological sex is important.
Q: Under the Gender Recognition Act, people can change sex. Would you change that?
Truss says the act allows people to change gender, but that is not the same as biological sex.
Truss says there are “real issues on the frontline” with the NHS. She would appoint a really good health secretary.
Q: Rishi Sunak? It has been rumoured it could be him.
Truss says she does not want to get ahead of herself.
Truss says she would be willing to serve in a Rishi Sunak cabinet. She says she may have disagreements with him, but she prefers him to Keir Starmer.
Truss, unlike Sunak, refuses to say Johnson was to blame for his own downfall
Q: Was Johnson to blame for his own downfall?
Some members of the audience shout that it the media was to blame. Truss says she would not want to disagree with the excellent audience.
Q: Do you really think it was the media’s fault?
Truss says she was one of Johnson’s first backers. What’s done is done, she says.
Earlier Sunak said Johnson was to blame for his own downfall. See 8.12pm.
Truss says she would vote to end privileges committee inquiry into whether Johnson lied to MPs
Q: Should the inquiry into whether Boris Johnson lied to parliement go ahead?
Truss says that is a matter for parliament, but she goes on:
I don’t believe he misled parliament.
Q: Would you vote to stop it?
Truss says she would, but she says “there isn’t a vote and it is going ahead”.
(As prime minister Truss could schedule a vote to end the inquiry – although that would be hugely controversial.)
Q: You keep changing your mind, not just on Brexit but on other policies too.
Truss says she did back remain. She was loyal to David Cameron. But as soon as the vote came in, she tried to make it work.
Q: Is it true your team is in talks with the Cabinet Office about implementing your programme?
Truss says that is not true.
Q: The CBI want you and Sunak to agree an energy policy. Will you do that?
Truss says she is foreign secretary. She is focusing on Ukraine.
And we have a chancellor, she says. It would be constitutionally wrong for her and Sunak to try taking these decisions.
She says the “kangaroo committee” Newton Dunn is talking about sounds bizarre.
Newton Dunn says he is not proposing it. It is the CBI and Gordon Brown.
Truss seizes on the name Brown, and suggests that proves her point.
Q: Your tax cuts might provide people with £323? Will your giveaways ….
Truss says these are not giveaways. She says Newton Dunn is framing this in a leftwing way.
Q: Are you prepared to help people, in the light of today’s predictions about what will happen to energy bills?
Truss says the important word in that question is today. These are predictions for today.
She says she wants to cut taxes, and also deal with supply issues. They have to increase the supply of energy. There is more they can do on nuclear, from the North Sea and on fracking.
But in any budget she would look at the situation at the time.
Q: So you are not ruling out handouts?
Truss says she will not write her budget in the middle of August.
Truss takes questions
Truss is taking questions now. Newton Dunn is asking them.
Q: Rishi Sunak would spend billions on helping people with energy bills. Would you do that?
Truss says her priority is cutting tax. That would help the economy grow.
She does not believe in taking money from people in tax and then handing it back to them. That is “Gordon Brown economics”, she claims. It led to a slow growth economy.
(In fact, economic growth has been even slower in the 12 years since Brown left office than it was before.)
Newton Dunn says he can see more Sunak supporters than Truss ones in the audience. People wearing Truss T-shirts make themselves visible, and Newton Dunn says he can see them now.
Q: What would you do about business rates?
Sunak says he has cut business rates. And he says he would do the same as PM. Helping high streets is an absolute priority, he says.
That’s it now. The Sunak questions have finished.
Q: Why don’t you reduce the double taxation people pay on fuel?
Sunak says he represents a rural constituency. He introduced the biggest ever fuel duty cut. But that was not passed on, he says. He says there is a problem with the way the market works.
He says he believes in focusing on interventions that work.
As an MP for a rural area, he has also been conscious of the need to help people who are not on the gas grid, he says.
