I’ve done very well, says Rishi Sunak at select committee grilling

Normally when a select committee hearing or interview is described as ‘wide-ranging’, it’s because a lot was said, but none of it of much note. Today’s Liaison Committee session with Rishi Sunak was wide-ranging, but in an unusually newsy way. The Prime Minister was grilled by select committee chairs on immigration, Rwanda, Gaza, defence spending, China, online harms, pensions and local government. Almost all the topics yielded a line of note – though admittedly some of the lines were notable for what Sunak did not say.

On defence, for instance, an issue that is heating up again in the Tory party, the Prime Minister refused to go beyond the holding line that he and ministers (bar James Heappey, who used his last Defence Questions as a minister yesterday to make yet another call for more funds), have stuck to of spending rising to 2.5 per cent of GDP ‘when conditions allow’.