Tom Tugendhat and Robert Jenrick join Tory leadership race as James Cleverly leads with MP endorsements - live

Andrew Griffith has urged the future Tory leader to form a “diligent” opposition to win back votes lost to Reform UK.

He told Sky News: “It is not about Reform it is about how we get back the Conservatives that gave us their votes in 2019 and previous elections and for whatever reason did not support us at the last election.”

He said the way to win back the electorate is to make sure the party is a “diligent” opposition.

The shadow science secretary added: “There is lots of significant challenges and the road back is going to be hard and require a lot of discipline. You control what you can control.”

Shadow science secretary Andrew Griffith has confirmed he will not run in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as the next Conservative leader.

He told Sky News: “Anyone would fancy it, but I am not standing.”

Mr Griffith added: “We have got a good bench, I’d like to see that develop over the next few days. it is a really important job and we have a big piece of work to do to demonstrate trust and competence.

“There is a debate about policy but I think above all else it is about how we demonstrate as a Conservative Party what we stand for and how we can deliver it competently.

“That starts with being a good leader of the opposition.”

The Tory leadership contender has posted a video launching his bid to become the next party leader.

In the clip, he admitted “where we failed” and vowed to rebuild the trust lost during 14 years of Tory administration.

He said: “We said we’d cut taxes and they went up. We said we’d cut immigration, it went up. We let people down. We lost their trust.

“We fought among ourselves, instead of delivering for the British people.

“We forgot leadership is about fixing the problems people actually care about. I will end the infighting, rebuild the trust and deliver for you. I want to lead the Conservative party and make us ready for government in five years time.

Mr Tugendhat then promised voters that a future Conservative government will be straight with the public, adding: “We will say what we mean and we will do what we say.”

The battle for the future of the Conservative Party officially began on Wednesday night with the opening of nominations in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak following the Tories’ worst general election result.

A long and potentially divisive campaign will eventually produce a winner on November 2.

The first to launch his leadership campaign was James Cleverly, joined by Tom Tugendhat.

With just a few days until nominations close, we could see more Tory MPs confirming their bids today. They have until 2.30pm on Monday and contenders need a proposer, seconder and eight other backers to stand.

The parliamentary party will then narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party Conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.

Tom Tugendhat has refused to say whether the Rwanda deportation scheme was wrong.

Asked the question on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Tugendhat said he was “not going to be laying out policies in that specific way, what I am going to be talking about is Conservative values”.

Pressed on where the Tories had got wrong with their policies, he replied: “What went wrong is we failed to deliver.”

Tom Tugendhat is running for the Conservative leadership on a record of delivery, Archie Mitchell writes.

The Tory MP said the party needs to admit it failed to deliver for the public after the 2019 election, highlighting his own achievements as evidence he can turn it around.

Mr Tugendhat told LBC: “I have a track record of delivering, whether that’s on operations in the military in Afghanistan or Iraq, or whether that’s standing up to dictators in Parliament, which got me sanctioned by China, Russia and Iran.

“Or whether it’s delivering on the security agenda that, sadly, I haven’t been able to talk about, for rather obvious reasons as the cabinet minister responsible for national security.”

He added: “Those areas have demonstrated that I can deliver and unite the party to make sure we are able to win the next general election.”

Tom Tugendhat has refused to name his key contenders in the race to become Tory leader.

The shadow minister confirmed he has enough support for nomination.

But when asked about who could be his biggest threat, he told Sky News: “What is interesting about these competitions is that I am up against a lot of people, people who are friends of mine, worked with and in partnership with.”

Pressed on whether he has his eyes put on Kemi Badenoch, the MP for Tonbridge said: “I can’t answer the question I am afraid.”

Tom Tugendhat has accused the Labour government of “undermining” the Ministry of Defence after failing to set up a timeline for defence spending.

He has been asked about claims from the chief of the general staff Sir Roly Walker that the UK must be ready for war within three years.

The shadow security minister said: “He is talking about is the failure to prepare we have seen in the run up to conflict. We saw this when I was serving in Afghanistan.”

Hitting out at the government, he added: “I am worried about what Labour has set out, they haven’t put a timeline, they have undermined the MoD and their capacity to plan. And they have made it harder for defence industry to make sure we can support our operational needs.”

Conservative leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat has denied that his suggestion that he would be prepared to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is political opportunism.

“No, I’ve been very, very clear I am prepared to make any decision that will keep the British people safe,” he told GB News when questioned about his change of tone on the issue.

“I am prepared to leave the ECHR, or indeed any other institution that doesn’t serve the interests of the British people.”

Mr Tugendhat talked up his experience as former security minister and in the armed forces, saying he has a “track record of delivery” for the British people.

Tom Tugendhat has said the Conservative Party needs to “rethink everything” after facing its worst general election defeat in history. The Tory leadership contender, seen as one of the front-runners, said the party failed to deliver since the 2019 contest, Archie Mitchell writes.

And Mr Tugendhat, from the moderate wing of the party, pointed specifically to soaring migrant numbers and the rising tax burden when asked why voters rejected the Conservatives.

The morning after officially launching his leadership bid, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What we need to do is look at everything that happened in the last four or five years and make sure we rethink the agenda on which we stand.

“We are three weeks into a five year term of opposition, sadly, and we need to rethink everything we do in order to serve the British public… it’s going to take time but at the moment we need to apologise for the mistakes we made and recognise we failed to deliver.”