Latest Conservative hustings at 7pm
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss will go head-to-head in Cheltenham in around 15 minutes, you can follow all of the action here.
Key events
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Will she scrap the BBC licence fee, Truss replied: “I will reform the BBC licence fee and I certainly think it is completely wrong that so many women are in jail for non-payment of it.”
Truss also vowed to keep the Net Zero pledge.
Truss was asked a series of yes/no questions.
On cutting foreign aid, she said: “I will keep it as it is.”
Leave the ECHR: “If we need to, but I’d rather legislate through the British Bill of Rights.”
Will she sack 91,000 civil servants: “I will certainly reduce the size of the civil service over time.”
Truss was asked if she is the sort of politician who changes her position to suit her ambitions having been a Lib Dem and also supported Remain before becoming a Brexiteer.
Truss replies she was “pretty equivocal at the time” on Brexit in the run up to the 2016 referendum and she “wasn’t sure”.
She said she was “concerned about potential disruption” of leaving the EU.
Truss insists she is “low tax, pro growth, pro opportunity” and she wants to ensure the UK is open for business.
Asked if she is therefore “low tax and high borrowing” to pay for it, she said: “My tax cuts… will cost £30 billion. That is affordable within our current budget… I am afraid to say the plans of raising taxes are likely to lead to a recession…”
Truss said there is a “real danger of us talking ourselves into a recession”.
Asked if he she is for or against “handouts” to help with energy bills, she said “my first preference is always to reduce taxes” but stressed she cannot write or announce the contents of a Budget now.
We now move onto the questions.
Truss is asked how she would lower people’s energy bills.
She said her starting point would be helping people through tax cuts and that we “shouldn’t be taking money off people in taxes and then giving it back as benefits”.
On tackling inflation, Sunak said: “We have seen this story before. Inflation is the enemy that makes everyone poorer.”
On Liz Truss’s tax cutting pledges and plan for the economy, the former chancellor said: “What I will not do is pursue policies that risk making inflation far worse and last far longer…”
Sunak said his three main goals as Tory leader would be to “restore trust”, “rebuild the economy” and “reunite our country”.
Sunak begins with an anecdote that a woman had recently asked him about his “relationship with the prime minister” as she told him he was very different to Boris Johnson.
Sunak said the lady had told him: “He [Johnson’] looks like he has lost his hairbrush but you look like your mum brushed your hair…”
Alex Chalk, the former solicitor general and Tory MP for Cheltenham, is introducing Rishi Sunak on stage.
Truss reiterates she would extend the government’s Rwanda asylum seeker plan to more countries.
The foreign secretary added she will “make sure that British legislators cannot be overruled by the ECHR, I will legislate for that”.
The foreign secretary tells the audience reversing a hike to National Insurance is the right thing to do.
She said that “we should never have done it… we can still afford to pay for the NHS and social care out of general taxation…”.
Truss added she decided to stop a planned increase to corporation tax because “fundamentally I am a Conservative” and she believes that people should be allowed to keep more of their own money.
Truss begins by saying she has a “dark secret” which is she used to be a member of the Liberal Democrats, which she has disclosed before in hustings.
She said she learnt that “they do not share my principles”.
Pledging to not let the Lib Dems gain more councils across the country, Truss said she will “re-establish the Liberal Democrat unit at CCHQ to ensure a crackdown to stop that from happening”.
Brandon Lewis, the former Northern Ireland secretary, introduces Liz Truss onto the stage.
Peter Booth, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Board, said all Tory members should have received their ballot paper by today.
The posting of the ballots had been delayed following security concerns last week.
The hustings is now underway in Cheltenham with the introductory speeches.
Away from the hustings, MPs received almost 70,000 worth of free tickets to concerts and sporting events this summer, including gigs by Ed Sheeran and Adele and the British Grand Prix.
An update to the MPs’ Register of Interests revealed 10 MPs were treated to tickets worth thousands of pounds to the Grand Prix at Silverstone.
MPs given tickets to the Grand Prix included defence secretary Ben Wallace, whose two tickets worth 1,516 were provided by Motorsport UK, and former minister Dame Andrea Leadsom, who received two tickets worth a total of 2,600 from Silverstone Circuits itself.
Crawley MP Henry Smith recorded the single most valuable hospitality declaration, with Emirates Airlines paying 4,248 for two tickets to the Grand Prix.
Other Cabinet ministers to receive hospitality included work and pensions secretaryTherese Coffey, who was given a ticket to an Ed Sheeran concert at Wembley by the Betting and Gaming Council, and Treasury chief secretary Simon Clarke, who received hospitality at Wimbledon worth 1,250 from the Lawn Tennis Association.
Due to the number of people attending, the start of the hustings has been delayed until 7:15pm.