Tory hustings - live: Truss vows to take on ‘Treasury orthodoxy’ in swipe at Sunak

A Conservative former chief whip has backed Rishi Sunak’s claims that during the pandemic “dissenting voices were not allowed” in government.

Mark Harper, who is a Sunak supporter and chairs the lockdown-sceptic Tory Covid Recovery Group, told Tom Swarbrick on LBC: “You will know that one of the roles that I had during the Covid pandemic, chairing the Covid recovery group with a number of my colleagues, was simply to ask the government some questions about yes, the threat from Covid but also the cost and consequences of the decisions that were taken.

“In fact, in your news headlines, you just highlighted there, the impact there’s been on a number of children from the fact that we locked them out of school. That’s children who were at no risk from Covid.

“And all that I was doing from outside government, Rishi Sunak was doing inside government, was asking some questions about how we balance these things, how you trade it off and make the choices?

“And the government was not being honest about that publicly. It was setting out that there were no choices, that you had to follow ‘The Science’, capitalised T, capitalised S, and dissenting voices were not allowed.”

He added: “When I raised questions – and we questioned the modelling people in No 10 briefed out to journalists that we deliberately wanted to kill thousands of people which was clearly nonsense – we were simply asking questions to get better decisions, and I’m pleased that Rishi Sunak shone a bit of a light on what was going on in government at the time.”

Overall grades for GCSEs are expected to be lower than in 2020 and 2021, but “that’s very much part of the plan“, an education minister has said.

Will Quince told Sky News: “The results will be out very, very soon, but I think the first thing is that today is a celebration of all those young people’s achievements and efforts over the course of the past two years.

“So, today’s about saying a huge well done, and a huge thank you to all of the teachers and the school leaders, and of course parents and carers that have supported young people to get those results. And you know, wish them every success with what they’re going to do next.”

Asked whether their grades are going to be lower, Mr Quince said: “So, yeah, they are and that’s very much part of the plan. Over the last couple of years, we have had teachers assess grades, we have gone back for the first time to examinations.”

He added: “We recognise the fact that young people have faced huge disruption of the past couple of years, so there have been adaptations in place and Ofqual have reflected in their marking and grading.”

Rishi Sunak has claimed the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) group advising Boris Johnson’s government edited its minutes to hide dissenting opinions.

“The Sage people didn’t realise for a very long time that there was a Treasury person on all their calls,” the former chancellor told The Spectator. “A lovely lady. She was great because it meant that she was sitting there, listening to their discussions.”

Mr Sunak claimed that he became “emotional” during fraught meetings with ministers and top scientists. “Those meetings were literally me around that table, just fighting. It was incredibly uncomfortable every single time.”

“I was like, ‘Forget about the economy – surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare.’ There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.”

The next prime minister will introduce an additional package of support on the cost of living, schools minister Will Quince has said.

“There is no question in my mind, listening to the two leadership candidates … that the government is going to act and put in place a further package of support measures,” the Rishi Sunak supporter told LBC.

Mr Quince added: “We will have to wait a couple of weeks … Both contenders have been clear, there will be a fiscal event, and more help will be coming.”

A BBC board member who acts as an arbiter of the broadcaster’s impartiality is an “active agent” of the Conservative Party, according to former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis.

Ms Maitlis, who left the BBC this year for rival media group Global, is understood to have referred to Theresa May’s former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb in a speech that was scathing about the corporation’s alleged closeness to No 10.

Our political correspondent Adam Forrest has the full report:

Shell Energy will be forced to pay out more than half a million pounds for charging thousands of customers more than the price cap allows it to.

Energy regulator Ofgem said the company had overcharged 11,275 pre-payment customers by a total of £106,000 between 2019 and 2022.

It will be forced to repay this, shell out an extra total of £30,970 in goodwill payments to the customers and put £400,000 towards a fund run by Ofgem. Customers are being refunded an average of £9.40 each.

The British Chamber of Commerce has called for action to “protect businesses, livelihoods and jobs” in a letter to Boris Johnson, chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and both candidates for the Tory leadership.

The business group urged the politicians to consider Covid-style grants for small and medium-sized firms, a temporary cut in VAT to 5 per cent, and for Ofgem to be given more power to strengthen regulation.

“We simply cannot afford to see another month of the same old news,” said the group’s director general, Shevaun Haviland. “The problems are well understood … It is now over to the government to take action to protect businesses, livelihoods and jobs.”

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been urged to “think the unthinkable” and consider raising income tax in order to fund further support with the cost of living crisis.

The think tank said a 1 per cent hike in income tax on all rates – with 60 per cent paid by the wealthiest fifth of UK households – would raise £9.5bn a year for more support with gas and electricity bills.

The foundation also urged the next prime minister to work with the energy companies on creating a new “social tariff” to reduce bills for hard-pressed Britons on low and middle incomes.

Our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports:

Language used by the government during its Covid-19 briefings throughout the pandemic was “vague, slippery and ambiguous” so as to reduce accountability, a new study has found.

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University found that ministers adopted “lexicogrammatical strategies” to share responsibility for policy decisions with the public.

Read the full story here:

Freezing energy bills will not help people who need the most support with the cost of living crisis, a minister has said.

Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the “eyewatering” sum would not be the best way through a winter of price hikes.

Speaking to Sky News he said: “I don’t think that a universal freezing of everybody’s energy bill really helps to get taxpayer’s money into the bank accounts of the people who need support the most.”

Instead, he said both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had proposed the “better solution” of “more targeted packages” of support to the least well off.