Jenrick tells Tory conference Q&A he gave his daughter middle name of Thatcher – UK politics live | Politics

Jenrick said the Tories should be “obsessed” with reforming the NHS. He said:

Our party needs to be obsessed with how we can reform the NHS. Don’t treat it like a religion to be worshipped. Treat it like a public service to be reformed.

Q: Would you vote for assisted dying?

Jenrick says he would allow a free vote, but he thinks he would vote against. He says his grandmother lived with their family. It was a formative experience. He goes on:

She had a very long and terminal illness, a very severe form of emphysema, and the last years of her life were extremely difficult and painful, and it was painful for us to watch.

Now, we never had a conversation, obviously, about what she might have done if we’d lived in a different society with different laws. I understand where the motivation to change the law comes from, and it is a noble one in that sense.

But I am very concerned about the unintended consequences of changing the rule.

A few months ago, just before the general election, I went to Canada to meet the Canadian Conservative party who I take great inspiration from. I think, incidentally, they are the model, really, for what we should be doing as a party.

But one of the things in conversation they spoke about was the very severe unintended consequences that they have experienced from their own [assisted dying law].

And so I would just urge everyone – my parliamentary colleagues, Keir Starmer and the Labor party – to think this through very, very carefully.

Jenrick says it was a “bad decision” to schedule the end of the Tory leadership contest for after the budget, which means the new leader won’t respond to the budget statement in the Commons.

Q: If you make it to the final two, will you go and see Richard Fuller, the party chair, the following morning, and demand that the end of the contest is brought forward.

Jenrick says he will “100%”.

(One reason why CCHQ has not cut short the contest is because not all candidiates are in favour. Kemi Badenoch is the person who has been most critical of the idea of shortening the contest.)

Jenrick says there were more people in his sixth form at school than there are Conservative MPs now. So the era of “five families” must end. They must unite, and be one Conservative team.

On immigration, Jenrick said he fought hard while he was in government for a tougher line on immigration. And he said that at one he secured changes by threatening to resign. He said:

I think everybody knows I fought pretty darn hard to get the changes.

Without lifting the veil entirely on what happened, the reason that we got the changes [to immigration policy] was because I sat in the prime minister’s office late at night and said to him, I’m not going to continue in this government unless we do this, because it felt was so important to me.

Hope asks Jenrick about his daughter’s middle name.

Jenrick confirms that its “Thatcher” – something that Hope knew already, because Jenrick mentioned it in an interview for Hope’s “Chopper’s Political Podcast”. (Chopper is Hope’s nickname.)

But the revelation still provokes a gasp of astonishment. Liz Truss called one of her daughter’s Liberty because she (Truss) is a libertarian. Keir Starmer’s parents called him Keir because they admired Keir Hardie, the Labour party founder. But to have Thatcher as a middle name is a bit more extreme.

Jenrick says he chose the name because of his admiration for the former PM, and because she died the year his daughter was born.

Jenrick has a better joke when asked about his family, and whether they want him to stand. He says his daughter has asked if they will get free Taylor Swift tickets if he wins.

Maybe that’s true, and not a joke, but it gets a laugh anyway.

Jenrick says he told his daughter free Taylor Swift tickets were only for Labour leaders.

To his credit, Hope asks Jenrick if he will refuse to accept freebies if he is elected leader. Jenrick did not seem to see this coming, looks momentarily flummoxed, but quickly concludes there is only one answer he can give, and says he will turn them down.

If he does win, it may be an answer he regrets.

Robert Jenrick is being interviewed on the main conference stage by Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News. The format is the same as yesterday, when Hope interviewed Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch. He will start by putting questions himself for half an hour, and then ask questions submitted by members.

After the Q&A with Jenrick, Hope will do the same again with James Cleverly.

Jenrick is explaining why he wants to be leader. He starts with a joke about how he said the Tory defeat was the worst since 1832, only to be corrected by Jacob Rees-Mogg who told him it was the worst defeat since 1760. And someone joked Rees-Mogg was probably around then, he says.

Jenrick has told this joke at every event where I’ve seen him speak since Sunday, and given that the leadership candidate events are best attractions, most people must have heard it already. But it gets a small laugh anyway.