Rishi Sunak news – live: Suella Braverman has learnt from her mistakes, PM insists

Despite the markets having “calmed somewhat”, the economic picture “remains grim” and Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are seeking to fill a “massive fiscal black hole” in their upcoming Budget, a Treasury source has said.

The PM and his chancellor held a meeting on Thursday lasting more than an hour and characterised as “sober”, as they were warned economic growth is forecast to drop amid fears of a recession.

Treasury sources declined to put a figure on the savings being considered in the 17 November Budget – but they were believed to be looking at up to £50bn in cuts and spending hikes to plug a gap of £40bn.

“Markets have calmed somewhat, but the picture remains grim. After borrowing and spending hundreds of billions of pounds due to Covid-19 and for energy bills support, there is a massive fiscal black hole to fill,” the Treasury source told the Press Assocation news agency.

“People should not underestimate the scale of this challenge, or how tough the decisions will have to be. We’ve seen what happens when governments ignore this reality.”

Former energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that Rishi Sunak “is right not to” attend the Cop27 climate summit, claiming that the cost of “each hotel room for the conference is £2,000 a night”.

The cost of accommodation at the conference has been the subject of consternation among attendees and activists, and the Egyptian government previously negotiated a $120 (£105) price cap for two-star hotels and announced cheaper accommodation in recent weeks.

Therese Coffey has denied that Conservative MPs were physically pressured to ensure they voted against a Labour motion on fracking.

Asked about claims she was involved in chaotic and “quite ugly” scenes at Westminster last week, where a group of senior Tories were accused of pressuring colleagues to go into the “no” lobby, she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I don’t accept that at all. And frankly, you know, I’m not going to dwell on these things.

“People have posted things I believe to be libellous. What I did is to vote for the government on that day, in terms of what had been turned into, effectively, a vote of confidence, by shenanigans by the Labour Party.”

Pressed on whether she “manhandled” anyone, Dr Coffey said: “Absolutely not.”

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said those investigating the alleged events are due to report back to him on Monday.

In this morning’s interview round, Therese Coffey has been defending Rishi Sunak’s decision not to attend the crucial Cop27 climate summit, on the basis that the “big political” gatherings happen every five years.

Our climate correspondent Saphora Smith reports that, traditionally, the United Nations has required countries to submit climate targets every five years including ahead of the Glasgow summit last year where world leaders gathered to pledge how they would contribute to action on climate change.

However, as the climate crisis progresses more urgency and emphasis are being put on each annual summit with countries agreeing in Glasgow to update and strengthen their climate targets in 2022, rather than waiting another five years.

Therese Coffey has continued her defence of Rishi Sunak’s decision not to attend the crucial Cop27 climate summit, insisting that the “UK continues to show global leadership, as opposed to just a gathering of people in Egypt”.

“The politically big significant things happen every five years,” the environment secretary told LBC.

“The government has postponed the medium term fiscal plan until 17 November, I know that the prime minister is very keen to work with the chancellor very closely on this important element, and so he’s prioritising that.

“While at the same time, of course, the UK continues to show global leadership, as opposed to just a gathering of people in Egypt.”

Downing Street aides are claimed to have feared that Liz Truss could “be done in for lying” to parliament and face a Commons probe alongside her predecessor Boris Johnson, after she told MPs she was “not planning public spending reductions”.

According to a new biography of the nation’s shortest-serving PM, serialised in The Sun, the claim sparked panic among some No 10 aides, who knew that soaring inflation would mean real-term spending cuts even though spending should technically increase.

The comments came after the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) reportedly told her soon-to-be sacked chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng that their mini-Budget had torn a £72bn black hole in the nation’s finances.

Liz Truss is claimed to have given up on her disastrous mini-Budget after a “terrible” day in which Treasury officials warned her that the City of London would be reduced “to rubble”.

“[James] Bowler, all the Treasury officials, [cabinet secretray Simon] Case, they all sat around the cabinet table and said to the PM: ‘Unless you junk [your plans for] corporation tax, we are going to have the most catastrophic meltdown; it will take 20 years to recover’,” a No 10 source told the authors of an upcoming biography.

“They scared the s**t out of her basically.”

While Ms Truss initially “railed against” what she considered a Bank of England and Treasury “stitch-up”, she is claimed to have later confessed privately: “The problem is that the last time I ignored all these people they were right”.

According to a serialisation in The Sun of the upcoming book Out Of The Blue, a No10 aide involved in the discussions said: “Thursday 13th was terrible. They said the pound was basically going to crash to such a level that we would struggle to sell our debt, in the way a third-world country does.

“Basically, Britain was going to become like rubble. It was impossible to know who to believe at this stage.”

The security services still trust newly-reinstated home secretary Suella Braverman, a security source has said – despite her mishandling of sensitive documents and embroilment in another leak inquiry

The home secretary will still be receiving intelligence briefings from MI5 despite ex-Home Secretary Lord Blunkett and a host of Tory MPs speaking out with concerns over her reappointment just six days after she resigned for sending sensitive government information via her personal email account.

A security source told the Times that it was “completely untrue” that MI5 could withhold information from the Home Secretary and said they had “a strong and trusted working relationship”, adding: “She will continue to receive regular intelligence briefings.”

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone has the full report:

Pressed on her claim – in defence of Rishi Sunak’s snub – that the “big political” Cop summits generally take place every five years, environment secretary Therese Coffey said that “the annual meetings have always been important”.

“This year in particular we’re seeing also the convention on nature, it’s called the Convention on Biodiversity [Convention on Biological Diversity], as well as one on the illegal trade of endangered species. So there’s a number of different things coming together, so it’s an important year for the environment,” she told Sky News.

“We have held the presidency for the last year, and it’s important that we hand that over for now to Egypt. But we will continue to do as we are doing, working towards different ways of how we meet our carbon budget domestically, but also our support that we give around the world to different countries.”

She added: “And we certainly showed leadership last year when we really set ourselves challenging targets.”

Therese Coffey has refused to be drawn on reports suggesting that Rishi Sunak expand the windfall tax on energy companies – potentially to include renewables firms.

The environment secretary told Sky News: “I’m sure that he is working with his chancellor Jeremy Hunt to explore all the different elements in the run-up to the medium-term fiscal plan, which has been put back by a couple of weeks.”

Pressed on whether she would like to see this happen, she said: “I think I’m not going to get into a discussion about tax because that really is a matter for the chancellor and the prime minister.”