Thank you for following MailOnline’s coverage of the final day of the Conservative conference in Birmingham.

Continue to follow all the latest updates from the Tory leadership contest via our home page.

Watch MailOnline’s live stream as the four candidates give their keynote speeches.

It’s emerging that Kemi Badenoch was the only Tory leadership candidate who refused to stay for a Q&A with journalists after this morning’s keynote speeches.

While Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick all answered questions from the press, Ms Badenoch was pursued through the Birmingham’s ICC after she refused to take part.

Videos on social media showed dozens of journalists and photographers rushing after her as they asked why she would not speak to them.

Tory leader hopefuls sniped at each other, payed homage to Thatcher and hammered the party’s legacy today as they made their pitch to activists.

A ‘beauty parade’ of Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat laid out their cases one after the other in 25-minute speeches at party conference.

Both Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch – seen as the frontrunners – appealed for a revival of the 1970s Thatcherite spirit.

And all four gave a withering verdict on the party’s shortcomings in government, admitting that failures to bring down immigration and tax were major factors in the election drubbing.

Read more:

A statement from the Liberal Democrats on the Tory leadership race has savaged all four candidates standing in the contest.

A spokesperson for the party told Byline Times: ‘To call this contest scraping the bottom of the barrel would be an insult to barrels.’

Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper added: ‘Every day this leadership contest goes on reminds the public why they voted to kick [them] out of office.’

All four candidates have now delivered their pitch to be leader of the Conservative party.

Next week, MPs will take part in two ballots to half the field from four to two candidates.

Once the finalists have been announced, it’s then over to Conservative party members to choose who will become leader.

Their ballot ends on Halloween, with the result announced on November 2.

Multiple MPs have also come out in support of Tom Tugendhat after his speech earlier today.

Sarah Bool and James Wild both endorsed the former minister, with Mr Wild describing him as a ‘Prime Minister in waiting’.

Former Tory MPs who stood down or lost out at the previous election have also backed him as a unity candidate – including Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Jackie Doyle-Price.

There seems to be a coordinated effort to put the momentum back in Kemi Badenoch’s campaign after a difficult conference for her.

MPs including David Davis, Simon Clarke and Helen Grant have all put out statements on X, formerly Twitter, confirming their support for her in the last few minutes.

Although her speech appealed to the Tory base, her controversial statements on maternity pay left some MPs concerned she could cause trouble if elected as leader.

As the speeches drew to a close, multiple Conservative MPs announced which candidate they are backing to be the next Tory leader.

Speaking to Sky News, Mims Davies said she would be supporting James Cleverly, who received a rapturous reception to his speech a little earlier.

She said: ‘I’m delighted to be backing James Cleverly – what a morning for our party – it’s been a really uplifting four days. We have put them through all their paces and I am delighted to be endorsing James.’

Kemi Badenoch insisted the Tories must not be ‘afraid to do the right thing’ as she warned against treating government as a ‘media’ strategy.

The shadow housing secretary delivered a bullish message to activists about the need to be radical as she tries to get her leadership back on track.

She warned that the Conservatives must ‘reverse decline’ and recognise that the government is ‘broken’ as she wrapped up the speeches by the four contenders.

MPs will whittle them down to a final two next week before members choose Rishi Sunak‘s replacement for an announcement on November 2.

Vowing to ‘reboot and reprogram’ the country, Ms Badenoch said championing capitalism and combating the rise of ‘identity politics’ would be critical.

In her speech, which finished just minutes ago, Kemi Badenoch appeared to blame her own party for a steady rise in immigration since 2010.

She told the party conference: ‘In Government, we did not always keep our promises. We promised to lower taxes, they went up. We promised to lower immigration, it went up. Why? Because the Treasury said high immigration was good for the economy, but we knew it was not good for our country.’

Ms Badenoch added: ‘Unlike the left, we know right from wrong, but we allowed ourselves to be bound by aggressive identity politics, by a Treasury whose rules were written by Gordon Brown, and a legal system re-engineered by Tony Blair.

‘You may think Blair and Brown were defeated in 2010, but the truth is the left never left – it’s time to make a change.’

Robert Jenrick urged Tories to reignite the spirit of Thatcher, scrap European human rights laws and secure borders today as he laid out his case to activists.

The former immigration minister – seen by many as the frontrunner – said the party must be ‘honest’ about its legacy, including the failure to bring down inflows and ‘Stop the Boats’.

‘The country just doesn’t trust us,’ he said. ‘We failed to deliver the strong NHS, the strong economy and yes the strong border that we promised. Friends we must never fail our people again.’

Despite potshots from rivals for ‘walking away’ from government in protest at the Rwanda plan being too weak, Mr Jenrick insisted that was the only thing that meant he hung on to his seat at the election.

In a rousing appeal, he said he was from the tradition of ‘Magna Carta’ and spoke of how the Tories changed leadership and direction in 1974, with Margaret Thatcher taking the helm.

The time to start that renewal is right now.

‘Labour does not have a plan,’ Ms Badenoch told the Conservative conference.

‘We must be ready to replace them.’

She continued: ‘We have to renew. We have the chance to make the 2030s a golden age… that will leave a meaningful legacy for British people for generations to come.’

Ms Badenoch said if she is elected as leader, she will win elections and embark on a ‘once in a generation’ mission to reform the UK.

She said this would include looking at the health service, devolution, civil service and human rights legislation.

‘We will rewire, reboot and reprogramme. Nothing is more exciting to me. I am an engineer, and engineers do not hide from the truth.

‘This work cannot be the work of just one woman. It has to be the work of a huge team, a team that goes far beyond the Conservative party.’

She added: ‘We are a movement, a Conservative movement.’

Ms Badenoch also denied claims she ‘likes a fight’, but added she is ‘not afraid’ of fighting.

Ms Badenoch has accused politicians of ‘sneaking in’ socialism by giving it alternative names.

She claimed ‘communism’ was being presented to young people as ‘environmentalism’.

‘We have let young Conservatives down,’ she added as she criticised ‘identity politics’. ‘We need to defend them, champion them, and give them a party of which they can be proud.’

She continued: ‘We cannot sit by as the left denigrate our history and pull down our statues.’

Kemi Badenoch said the past government raised taxes and ‘regulated like Labour.’

She said the Conservatives gave the UK a ‘golden age of wealth creation’ in the 1980s, adding the party needs to be the party of wealth growth.

Ms Badenoch has criticised the plan for Net Zero, saying it is making energy more expensive and damaging the economy.

‘I am not a climate change sceptic, but I am a Net Zero sceptic,’ she added.

Speaking about her late father, who was a GP, Ms Badenoch said he taught her to ‘solve problems’ and ‘never be afraid to do the right thing’.

Speaking about her childhood spent in Nigeria, Ms Badenoch said: ‘I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. You cannot understand it unless you’ve lived it.’

She added: ‘When you’ve experienced that kind of fear, you’re not scared of being attacked on Twitter.’

‘I am not a Conservative because my family always voted Conservative. I am a Conservative because I have see what happens when a country loses sight of those principles, and that must not happen here.’

‘The system is broken,’ Ms Badenoch told attendees.

‘It is not enough to just be in government, because you can be in government without power.’

She referred to the general election as a ‘defeat which could destroy the Conservative party’.

But she said the party can ‘reverse decline’, adding: ‘Our country needs us, we must not let it down.’

Kemi Badenoch received raptorous cheers and applause as she stepped onto the conference stage in Birmingham.

‘It is time to tell the truth,’ she said, adding ‘for too long, politicians have been scared of the truth.’

‘It’s time to remember who we are, what we stand for and what we want this country to be,’ she added.

Mr Jenrick closed his speech by saing he wants to ‘be the change’ the Conservative needs.

Next up is Kemi Badenoch, the last of the four leadership hopefuls.

Mr Jenrick said his fifth tenet of leadership would be to ‘stand for the nation’.

He said that while the UK has a ‘bloated’ foreign aid budget, the country only has enough munitions to last a few weeks in the case of a war.

Turning to culture, he highlighted issues with teaching in schools, NHS treatment for children and the recruitment of RAF pilots as he pledged to protect freedom of speech.

Mr Jenrick said British identities are ‘unparalleled’ and pledged to hand on pride to the country’s children and grandchildren.

He said he would defend Britain and its culture.

Robert Jenrick has said the UK ‘must get building’ again and construct new homes and infrastructure.

He pledged to allow local people an input in planning applications, but added his party would stand by those needing construction – from scientists waiting for lab space to young families needing homes.

‘We will stand to get Britain building again,’ he added.

He also pledged to reduce the size of the state if elected as leader, and create a party that interferes less in people’s lives.

Mr Jenrick said his party would ‘stand for building a state that actually works, and the public services that every Briton deserves’.

Mr Jenrick said his second pledge would be to ‘take a stand’ on net zero.

He claimed the increase in energy prices was ‘all’ because of an over-reliance on ‘expensive energy’ – but made no mention of other factors such as the war in Ukraine.

He added current Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s policies will send Brits’ energy bills ‘sky high’.

‘We will stand for cutting emissions, but we will never do it on the backs of working people.’

Mr Jenrick said he has five tenets of leadership he would bring to the party.

He said the first was securing Britain’s borders, arguing anyone who enters the UK illegally must be ‘swiftly detained and deported’ as he reiterated his call to leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act.

He continued: ‘These institutions are creating an arsenal of laws through which [immigrants] frustrate their removal.’

‘The choice before us is leave or remain. I’m for leave. I am for the country of Magna Carta.’

Mr Jenrick said the party ‘must be honest’ with itself after a devastating electoral defeat.

‘The country doesn’t trust us right now,’ he told conference, saying his party received the lowest proportion of votes of any serving government at the July election.

He said the part must restore trust and confidence in its voters.

‘We are going to have to build something new. A new Conservative party.’

Mr Jenrick added he will rebuild the party based on Conservative traditions if elected as leader.

Mr Jenrick said the UK ‘needs a leader’ but ‘with Starmer, [it] has an undertaker’.

Attacking the Labour administration, he described Rachel Reeves as ‘as wooden as Pinocchio’ and Ed Miliband as ‘a Wallace without his Gromit’.

Mr Jenrick said he would stand up for the ‘hardworking silent majority’.

He told conference: ‘If I am your leader, the pressure group for Britain’s hardworking majority will be us, the Conservative party. That’s who I am in politics for.’

He described the Labour party as ‘cowardly’ for ‘robbing pensioners, just to appease [their] union paymasters’.

Robert Jenrick opened his speech by paying tribute to his parents, who moved to Birmingham 50 years ago.

He said their dream was ‘put on hold’, because a new Labour government meant ‘the country was broken’.

Harking back to 1974, he said the party made a choice to ‘reject defeatism’ by changing leadership.

Turning to the election of Margaret Thatcher, Mr Jenrick described her as ‘one of his heroes’ who was ‘strong as iron’.

Robert Jenrick is the next leadership hopeful to take to the stage in Birmingham this morning.

He told delegates: ‘It’s great to be here, it’s great to be home. I’m a Midlands man.’

Drawing his speech to a close, Mr Cleverly told delegates to choose the candidate rival parties ‘fear the most’ as he pledged a Conservative vision that interferes less in people’e lives.

‘I do not accept defeatism and I do not accept defeat.

‘Everyone running in this leadership contest needs to ask themselves, do they want to be the leader, or do they want to lead.

‘And I know what I want to do. I want to get the heel of the state off of their neck, get their nose out of your business and their hand out of your pocket.’

‘Leadership is about things like making the tough decisons when you get that ugly phone call in the middle of the night about kepiung this country safe.

‘And because I’ve ben there, because I know in detail what the government should be doing right now, I know in detail how they are failing.’

He continued he wants to ‘rebuild’, ‘renew’ and ‘get back to work’.

‘I can unite this party around Conservative values,’ he added.

James Cleverly has now turned to his record in office, describing how he has stood up to global powers and told China not to invade Taiwan.

‘I rejected the advice of Foreign Office officials and I was the first Foreign Minister to go to Israel after the October 7 terrorist attacks,’ he continued.

‘Because leadership is about standing by your values and standing shoulder to shoulder with your friends and allies.’

He restated his support for the people of Israel and the nation’s right to defend itself.

‘I have seen first hand how dangerous the world is… I commit to increase defence spending to three percent of GDP.’

James Cleverly has pledged to get rid of ‘bad taxes’ and axe stamp duty.

He told conference he would make sure work ‘always pays’ and the state never takes more than half of each pound workers earn.

The former Home Secretary continued: ‘Let’s be the market of free markets and freedom, of business and enterprise, let’s get on their side but out of their way.

‘These are my values, these are consistent values not opportunistic. A signpost, not a weather vane. It’s what I have always believed in and what I always will believe in.’

Mr Cleverly accused Labour of being ‘drunk on power’ and ‘completely out of their depth’.

He said the Conservatives need to hold Labour to account ‘now’, adding: ‘We know the Lib Dems won’t. They’re too wet. And in the case of Ed Davey, soaking wet.’

Mr Cleverly pledged ‘no mergers, no deals’ in dealing wit the threat of Reform.

‘Reform didn’t deliver Brexit, we did. Reform didn’t cut immigration, I did.’

He continued: ‘Farage and Starmer are two sides of the same coin. They both think that life was better in the past… they are both wrong.’

Mr Cleverly told delegates to bring the ‘smile’ back into Conservatism and take pride from its record in office.

‘It was our party that delivered Brexit, that cut crime, that created 800 jobs for every single day we were in office.

‘That, ladies and gentlemen, is a legacy we should be proud of.

James Cleverly spoke about joining the Army, before being discharged due to injury aged just 19.

He said he has spent 30 years serving as a reservist, and led a group of 100 soldiers.

‘One day, I got the call,’ Mr Cleverly said. ‘I was being mobilised.’

‘I thought I was going to Baghdad. I went to Luton.’

Mr Cleverly has thanked the NHS for saving his wife, Suzie, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

‘It is because of them that she sits in this auditorium today.’

Describing the moment she received the diagnosis, Mr Cleverly added: ‘As you know, my wife Susie recently battled with breast cancer, and when we found out she had cancer, it rocked our lives.

‘I could hardly speak, our boys were distraught, but because of the amazing professionals, the doctors and the nurses of the NHS, her life was saved.

‘So to all those in the NHS, I say, thank you.’

Mr Cleverly said he had not planned to run for leadership – and could have had an easier life by choosing to spend more time with his wife and Warhammer figures.

He told conference he felt he ‘needed’ to act, and spoke about how his mother arrived from Sierra Leone as a young woman and worked in the NHS.

‘I’m gutted she was not alive to see me elected’, he added.

‘Some people talk this country down. But this country has given so much to so many people, including my family.’

James Cleverly opened his pitch to leaders by asking delegates: ‘What’s the purpose of our party? Why are we here?’

He said the Conservative party does ‘not belong in opposition’.

‘We need to get back on track, but before we do that, there’s something we need to say. Sorry.’

He added: ‘We let you down, and we have to be better’.

Tom Tugendhat insisted he can be the next PM today as the final four Tory leader made their big pitches to the party faithful.

The former security minister asked activists whether they were choosing for ‘opposition’ or Downing Street as he kicked off a ‘beauty parade’ of speeches at conference.

Speaking seemingly without notes as he stalked the stage, Mr Tugendhat said he could ‘feel the hope’ that there is a ‘way back’ into power.

‘I’ve had enough of Westminster’s games and petty point-scoring,’ Mr Tugendhat said in an apparent swipe at his rivals.

‘I’m standing to lead not just this party but to become the next Conservative PM of this great country.’

Read more:

James Cleverly is the next Tory leadership candidate to take to the stage.

He faces a tough ask after a powerful speech from Tom Tugendhat, which left the audience cheering and chanting: ‘Tom, Tom, Tom’.

Tom Tugendhat said the country needs a ‘new Conservative revolution’.

In his speech to conference, he said the party needs to ‘focus on what the British people need and be absolutely ruthless about delivering it, from health care and immigration to security and education’.

‘We will deliver and we can bring down taxes but not if we treat these symptoms separately. That is a prescription for managed decline.

‘We can only fix the problem if we diagnose the cause, and it starts, as every Conservative knows, with our economy, real growth – not the illusion of growth that has been boosted by migration, has barely shifted in the past 30 years.

‘Now that’s left us poorer and more vulnerable.

‘We need to free the economy. We need a new Conservative revolution. That’s what Margaret Thatcher did. That’s what we must do again, and we can do it.’

Tom Tugendhat made a direct appeal to voters who abandoned the Tories at the July general election.

He told the audience at the Conservative Party conference: ‘We need to face the truth: Many who share our values did not vote for us.

‘So let me speak directly to those of you who have supported us in the past but didn’t this time.

‘If you went to Reform, I want to show you the conservative values that we share. If you went to the Lib Dems I want you to see the opportunities that only we can deliver.

‘If you went to Labour I want to show you why freedom – not state control – is how we build. If you stayed at home, I want to make you proud to vote Conservative again.’

Turning to security, Mr Tugendhat said he will always support nations’ right to freedom, adding the UK needs to improve its energy security.

He accused ‘dictators’ such as Putin of controlling international trade, and said he would never stop supporting Ukraine.

He added he is ‘proud’ of UK troops’ involvement in helping to shoot down Iranian missiles overnight after the Middle Eastern country unleashed a barrage of missiles towards Israel.

He also pointed out he had previously been sanctioned by nations including China.

‘Our health service is not the envy of the world.’

He accused bureaucrats of causing problems in the NHS and delaying access to treatment. He pledged to strip back bureaucracy and focus on treatment instead.

‘It’s not about money,’ Mr Tugendhat said, adding the NHS’s doctors and nurses are ‘brilliant’.

Mr Tugendhat has just pledged an immigration cap of 100,000.

He said the cap would not be a ‘target’, but a non-negotiable limit.

Tom Tugendhat poured praise on Conservative mayors Ben Houchen and Andy Street, saying they ‘focused on delivery, not idealogy.’

‘They got it done, because Conservatism changes lives.’

He pledged to follow their example and build an economy in which people have more say over what they spend their money on.

Mr Tugendhat continued: ‘To those who want to divide us I say this. I served with men and women of every religion and background with pride… we are one nation.

‘The Conservative party and our country are both built on the same thing. They are both built on patriotism and purpose.’

He pledged to rebuild CCHQ ‘from the ground up’ and put members ‘back in control of our party’.

Mr Tugendhat has promised to turn the Conservatives ‘from a Westminster club’ to a party of government.

He said he would lead the party to victory at the 2029 election, but the party will have ‘a lot of cleaning up to do’.

‘We can’t afford Labour, you can’t afford Labour… Lord Ali can’t afford Labour,’ Mr Tugendhat said to rousing applause.

He criticised the Labour government as the ‘most vindictive in decades’, and accused the last Labour administration of leaving troops without body armour on the front line in Iraq.

‘We can do better,’ Mr Tugendhat has told Conservative members. He said he has ‘had enough’ of Westminster ‘games’ and pledged to lead on policy and substance rather than personality.

‘I know what leadership demands when everything else has been cut away and nothing is left,’ he added, referring to his military career which saw him serve in Afghanistan.

‘Our country is crying out for leadership,’ he said. ‘Leadership is about making choices that serve our country and its people best.’

‘My mission is the prosperity and happiness of the British people. Together, we can win.’

Tom Tugendhat has said the defeat at July’s general election ‘hurt’ – but that the four days of conference have given him ‘hope’ for the future.

‘I know we can, and we will rebuild this party,’ he told delegates.

Tom Tugendhat is about to kick off the leadership candidates’ keynote speeches this morning.

Attendees are watching a short video before his 20 minutes speech.

Stay with our live blog for all the latest updates.

Jeremy Hunt has just been spotted arriving at the final day of the Conservative conference, where the four leadership candidates are set to give speeches any minute now.

Kemi Badenoch risked another storm of controversy yesterday by branding thousands of civil servants ‘very very bad’ – joking that they should be jailed.

The Tory leadership contender said that between 5 and 10 per cent of government officials – of whom there are more than 500,000 – are so bad that they ‘should be in prison’.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference, she blamed Whitehall staff for leaking official secrets, undermining ministers as well as ‘agitating’ in league with trade unions.

She said: ‘There’s about five, ten per cent of them who are very, very bad, you know, should be in prison bad. Leaking official secrets, undermining their ministers, agitating.

‘I had some of it in my department, usually union-led. Most of them actually want to do a good job, and the good ones are very frustrated by the bad ones.’

Read more:

Tom Tugenhat has been spotted arriving at the ICC in Birmingham this morning as he prepares to take to the stage to set out his final pitch to members.

He is the first candidate to deliver his keynote address, which will last up to 20 minutes and be preceeded by a two-minute video.

Mr Tugendhat is set to kick off this morning’s events at 10.45am. MailOnline will bring you all the latest updates as he takes to the stage.

Away from the Tory conference in Birmingham, Defence Secretary John Healey is in Cyprus as the Government steps up efforts for a potential evacuation of Lebanon with the Middle East teetering on the brink of wider war.

Mr Healey (pictured) confirmed British forces were involved in efforts to defend Israel from Iran’s ballistic missile barrage as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned of the risk of a ‘miscalculation’ after the escalation of violence in the region.

It is understood RAF jets were involved in the efforts to intercept the Iranian missiles targeted at Israel.

The operation was similar to the role carried out by the UK’s forces when Iran launched a drone and cruise missile barrage at Israel in April, when RAF Typhoons were involved in the defensive effort.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Mr Healey confirmed: ‘British forces have this evening played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East’.

After the four cadidates have given their speeches this morning, they will each have just one week to shore up support from their fellow MPs.

Tom Tugendhat is up first on the stage today, followed by James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch.

There will then be two more ballots for MPs on October 9 and 10, to decide which two candidates become the final two, who are then voted on by party members.

The online ballot for members will take place between October 10 and October 31, with the results announced on November 2.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the Conservative brand is ‘completely damaged’ and he has no intention of doing a deal with the next Tory leader.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Mr Farage said of the four Conservative Party leadership candidates: ‘They all think with a new leader ‘it’ll all be fine, all the voters will come back to us’, and what they don’t understand is the Conservative brand is completely damaged, they have no chance of winning the next election.’

He added: ‘There would be no deal with them, I wouldn’t trust them anyway, they have a pattern of behaviour pretending to be one thing and then when they’re in government being quite the opposite.

The Trades Union Congress has been forced to apologise after suggesting that schools were right to discriminate against a former Tory MP struggling to find work as a teacher.

Jonathan Gullis, who represented Stoke-on-Trent North from 2019 until being kicked out at the election in July, said he had been unable to even get an interview for work in his former profession since his defeat.

Speaking to Times Radio at the Conservative Party Conference, the former minister suggested that he was being discriminate against because of his political views in a profession dominated by the left.

But in a tweet the TUC poked fun at his difficulties, saying: ‘The trade union movement will always stand up for workers facing unfair discrimination. This is not one of those times.’

Read more:

Leadership hopeful and the former Home and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will pledge to bring back ‘Conservatism with a smile’ in his speech to party members later this morning.

The MP is expected to tell delegates to stop ‘being the grumpy party’ following the worst-ever modern election defeat for the Tories earlier this year.

He will instead tell conference attendees to be ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘positive’ as Labour’s opposition.

Former MP and Boris Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries has called for Kemi Badenoch to be disqualified from the Tory leadership race.

Ms Dorries argued the party needed a leader who was ‘non-confrontational’, and accused her of ‘plotting to remove a sitting prime minister.’

Speaking at a More in Common event last night, Ms Dorries said: ‘We all know how the [media] feel about Kemi Badenoch, don’t we? I’d be deeply concerned.

‘I think you need to have to be non-confrontational. I think you need to have demonstrated that you were loyal when you served in government.

A YouGov survey has suggested that polls are tightening and the commanding lead enjoyed by Kemi Badenoch among Tory activists has decreased dramatically.

The poll found that the former business secretary is now just three points ahead of Mr Jenrick, down from 18 points in July, at 27 and 24 points respectively.

James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat are tied on 16 points each, but with 17 percent of activists still not knowing who they would most like to be leader, the contest is all to play for.

Earlier, we brought you an update on the row engulfing the Tory party conference over a video accusing the SAS of killing terrorists instead of detaining them.

Watch Tom Tugendhat’s comments in full here:

The final four Tory leader contenders will make their big pitches to the party faithful today.

The candidates are all giving speeches as the conference in Birmingham wraps up – with the race looking too close to call.

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are seen as the front runners after topping the ballot of MPs. But Ms Badenoch has been struggling to quell a spat over suggesting maternity pay is ‘excessive’.

And Mr Jenrick is facing a furious backlash from his rivals over a campaign video in which he claimed British forces were killing terrorists rather than capturing them to dodge European human rights rules.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat – another candidate – retorted that Mr Jenrick ‘knows nothing’ about sensitive military issues.

Read more:

Kemi Badenoch has said people who want to move to the UK need to be ‘very committed’, adding the country is ‘not a dormitory’.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about immigration, Ms Badenoch said: ‘What we did previously was just leave the Home Office to look at people coming in and out, but we need to make sure that when people are coming to this country they are people who are coming to contribute and also who want the success of our country.

James Cleverly has suggested he would pledge to axe stamp duty if elected leader in order to help the economy ‘thrive’.

Asked if he would pledge to slash the tax, the Conservative former minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme stamp duty ‘stagnates the market’.

He added: ‘At the last general election, my party – the Conservative Party – was being criticised by the Labour Party for taxing too much.

‘If we don’t start cutting taxes, we stifle the economy and we will ultimately not be able to thrive as a country.’

When put to him that the measure was explored by Liz Truss in her short tenure as prime minister, Mr Cleverly replied: ‘Your argument is because one of my predecessors proposed it, we can never propose it?

‘This is why we have now got the highest tax burden since the war. Higher than many of our international competitors and high enough that the Labour Party felt liberated to criticise us.’

Tom Tugendhat has said the use of footage of a British soldier in Afghanistan who died shortly afterwards in a controversial video by rival Robert Jenrick is ‘upsetting’.

Mr Jenrick had already sparked controversy with the video, which saw him claim British troops are ‘killing’ terrorists instead of detaining them due to ECHR red tape.

Mr Tugendhat said the claims were fundamentally ‘untrue’, and told BBC Newsnight the clip had featured a friend of his who was killed shortly after the footage was taken.

He said: ‘What’s particularly upsetting is that video is using a piece of footage of some of the people I served with, one of whom there died shortly after that film was taken in an accident.

‘And he’s not able to defend himself from the accusation that is being levelled against him. That’s footage of a soldier in northern Afghanistan in around 2002.’

He added he would ‘take the video down’.

All eyes are on the Tory leadership candidates this morning as they gear up for keynote speeches later this morning.

Rivals Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch will all take to the stage from 10:45am and deliver 20-minute pitches to MPs andparty members.

After the conference, a final round of voting by MPs will whittle the field down to two candidates, before members elect the new leader.

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline’s live blog as the final day of the Conservative Party conference gets underway.

We will be bringing you all the latest updates from Birmingham as the leadership candidates set out their final pitch to party members.