Wednesday at the Conservative Conference - Rishi Sunak speech - video Dailymotion

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Wednesday at the Conservative Conference - Rishi Sunak speech

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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:08 Hello, I'm here in a packed Tory conference hall

00:11 where we have just finished hearing from the Prime Minister

00:13 in a speech incredibly heavy on policy

00:16 after several days in which ministers seem to have nothing

00:18 to announce at all.

00:19 In a wide ranging speech where he was introduced by his wife,

00:22 the Prime Minister firstly announced a ban on smoking

00:25 when the age of 14, meaning the smoking ban age will rise

00:29 one year every year.

00:31 So a 14-year-old now will never, ever be

00:33 able to legally buy a cigarette.

00:35 He points out the fact that one in four cancer cases

00:37 are caused by smoking.

00:38 I don't know how this is going to work in Scotland,

00:41 where it's obviously devolved.

00:42 But it was a wide ranging speech.

00:43 We also heard about HS2.

00:45 He cancelled HS2 to Manchester, as is widely expected.

00:49 And he said, £36 billion, he said,

00:52 will be spent every penny of that

00:53 will be spent on improving connectivity

00:55 in the North and the Midlands, including the A75 to Scotland.

00:59 Obviously, very difficult to have cancelled it.

01:02 It's hugely controversial here.

01:04 Many MPs and obviously the mayor of the West Midlands,

01:06 Andy Street, is livid about it.

01:09 But the Prime Minister said to his critics,

01:10 he's trying to stare them down and say,

01:12 if you don't support us investing the way that we are investing

01:15 that money, you don't want to improve.

01:16 You don't think that we can make real links.

01:18 And actually, times have changed.

01:20 We need to have a long term plan.

01:21 And this long term plan of improving buses, improving

01:24 roads, the smoking ban, these are

01:26 things that are the long term decisions, or long term

01:29 plan for a brighter future.

01:31 And Rishi Sunak has tried to make so much of.

01:34 We also heard, and quite possibly the strongest hint

01:36 yet, that he will leave the European Court of Rights

01:39 or seek to on stopping the boats.

01:40 While no policy was announced on that area,

01:43 the Prime Minister said he would do whatever it takes,

01:45 which is widely seen in the room as a hint

01:47 that we could leave the European Court of Human Rights, which

01:49 is one of the key areas which has stopped the UK government

01:52 being able to slow down the processing of boats coming

01:56 over to this country, as well as the whole ignoring

01:59 international law thing.

02:00 Speaking to MPs after, one told me

02:02 this is the best political speech they've ever

02:03 heard at conference.

02:04 That was an MP who's been coming here for decades.

02:07 Others said it was brilliant.

02:08 And even those on the libertarian end,

02:09 who maybe would be unhappy using traditionally

02:11 with the idea of banning smoking,

02:13 were very pleased indeed.

02:14 So the mood is quite good among the members.

02:16 The mood is good among MPs.

02:18 It remains to be seen how this fits to the wider country.

02:21 To find out and to read more about this,

02:23 stay tuned to thescotsman.com.

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Wednesday at the Conservative Conference - Rishi Sunak speech

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