Chancellor John Healey is giving his first speech as chancellor to the Labour Party conference - watch live at the top of the page
It comes exactly a month before he's due to give his first Budget on 28 October
The UK has "reset" its approach to Israel and the Palestinian people under PM Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband said earlier
While Defence Secretary Wes Streeting used his speech to say the UK's "friendship with America is the closest alliance of any two nations on Earth", amid the RAF Fairford counter-terror probe
We're covering the incident in a separate live page - read that here
Jennifer McKiernan
Reporting from Liverpool
A warm response in a packed hall as Chancellor John Healey starts his speech, with laughter as he recalls how his first Labour conference was in 1986.
"Back then, I had hair," he quips.
Chancellor John Healey has just begun his speech at the Labour Party conference.
Watch live at the top of the page, and we'll bring you the key lines, analysis and reaction in updates here.
Image source, Getty ImagesChancellor John Healey is expected to address the Labour Party conference in Liverpool shortly.
It is Healey's first conference speech as chancellor, after previously having served as defence secretary in Keir Starmer's government.
He is expected to promise a "new age of industrialisation" for the UK in his address, which will also announce plans to boost the UK's shipbuilding industry.
You'll be able to watch live at the top of this page, and we'll also be providing text updates on all the key points.
Nick Edser
Business reporter
One of the businessmen at the Labour Party conference today to listen to the chancellor is Steve Rigby, the chief executive of the family-owned Rigby Group, a technology and investment company.
Ahead of the speech, Rigby told the BBC’s Today programme that at the conference events he had attended the sentiment for businesses had been positive, adding: "I think there's a feeling of change."
However, he said he was hoping for a "pretty boring Budget" next month, with no tax rises for business as some sectors in the economy were "at their limit".
"I think that the business tax kitty has got to stop being raided, and we've got to get on with growth as the main agenda."
Rigby said people behind business start-ups were worried about possible changes to capital gains tax.
Asked if he thought there was a risk that changes to the tax might push start-ups out of the UK, he said: "I've no doubt there'll be an impact along those lines. I think you know the mobile nature of business today."
Emer Moreau and Theo Leggett
Business reporter and international business correspondent
Image source, EPAAhead of the chancellor's speech, diesel prices have hit an all-time high of 199.18p per litre, according to the motoring organisation RAC, as the war in the Middle East continues to push up the cost of fuel.
Petrol prices are also still rising, with a litre currently costing 174.13p.
Over the past seven months, the Iran war has severely disrupted the production and transportation of wholesale oil across the region, causing the price of fuels made from oil to surge.
RAC said diesel prices had entered "uncharted territory" and served as a reminder of "just how exposed the UK is to events occurring far away".
The cost of diesel has now risen by 59p a litre, or just under 40%, since the conflict between the USA and Iran erupted at the end of February. The previous record was 199.09p in June 2022.
By Daniel Wainwright
There’s been some discussion recently around the amount of “fiscal headroom” Chancellor John Healey has in the run-up to his first Budget.
Fiscal headroom is the margin by which the government is forecast to meet its fiscal rules which govern how it manages spending and borrowing. The headroom figure is the amount of leeway it has to increase spending or cut taxes, without breaking those rules.
When former Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her final spring statement in March the government had about £23.6bn of fiscal headroom against its fiscal rules, up from £21.7bn at the November 2025 budget.
This was more room than forecasts at other recent Budgets and spring statements since 2022, as the chart below shows
The UK’s public finances watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility should give an official update at the Budget.
But a, externalccountants KPMG estimate the current headroom has halved from £23.6bn in the spring to about £12bn. It puts this down to rising borrowing costs caused by the war in Iran and weaker economic growth.
The Resolution Foundation think tank has a more pessimistic estimate. It puts the headroom figure at about £8bn, saying “market turmoil” has potentially reduced it even further.
Tom Espiner
Business reporter
An unexpected surge in government borrowing in August, driven by persistently higher inflation, has added to pressure on Healey as he prepares to deliver his first Budget at the end of October.
Borrowing - the difference between tax receipts and government spending - was £18.3bn in August, almost a fifth higher than the year before, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
That figure was £3.5bn more than official forecasters expected.
Inflation rose to its highest rate in five months in August in the UK, driven up by higher petrol and diesel prices.
Although tax receipts were higher in August compared with a year ago, spending on public services, benefits, and other costs grew more as the pace of price rises increased.
The interest the government is paying on its debt rose to £8.8bn, its highest August level since records began in 1997.
Faisal Islam
Economics editor
Image source, Reuters"It is tough," John Healey admitted to me earlier this month when I asked him if there had been too much doom-mongering?
"Conflicts, uncertainty, driving up inflation, driving up interest rates. But we've got great strengths. We've got good reasons to be confident about the future of Britain," he insisted.
The new scheme to try and help young people get on the property ladder, announced on Saturday, was aimed at boosting confidence in the economy.
But the chancellor is now facing two big decisions before his inaugural Budget on 28 October.
Firstly, about the longevity of the economic pressures caused by the Iran War, and then about how to sustain a modest but notable uptick in economic spirits, through yet more global turbulence.
Image source, PA MediaJohn Healey has refused to be drawn on whether he might consider raising taxes to balance the government's books.
"On tax specifics, I'm the chancellor less than two months out from the Budget, I'm not going to speculate on questions of tax," he said on 7 September when he gave his first speech in the role.
He also would not be drawn on whether he would consider corporation tax being devolved.
Responding to questions about potential tax rises, he said Labour had made "very strong, very clear and very specific" pledges in its 2024 manifesto.
He has pledged to balance the books and says fiscal discipline remains his "first priority" as chancellor.
His comments came after Andy Burnham refused to rule out tax rises in the autumn Budget, saying he "won't be unrealistic" about the "challenging" state of public finances.
Brian Wheeler
Reporting from Liverpool
Image source, PA MediaJohn Healey’s predecessor Rachel Reeves saw her plans to cut spending fall apart when Labour MPs rebelled against welfare reforms.
The new chancellor is not expected to say much about welfare reform today.
But Alan Milburn, whose much anticipated report on getting the million or more young people not in employment, education or training into work is the talk of conference, had a few words of encouragement at a fringe meeting last night.
The former health secretary said the Labour Party “screwed up” last year.
“They framed it in exactly the wrong way” by asking MPs to vote for “arbitrary cuts in benefits that may harm people in their constituencies that they care about,” he told the Resolution Foundation meeting.
There were “difficult decisions” to be made on benefits, but it was “entirely possible to thread the eye of that particular needle” if the government presented any cuts as part of a broader cross government package to help the most vulnerable back into work.
“It’s not just about welfare, it’s about education. It’s about skills it’s about health and it’s about how you tangibly create opportunities by increasing support.”
Image source, EPABy Nicholas Barrett and Tom Edgington
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told the Labour conference the government was offering a “cast iron guarantee to honour the promise we made to our Nato allies to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence by 2035”.
In 2024 - the year Labour took office - the UK was spending the equivalent of around 2.3% of GDP (a measure of the size of the economy) - putting it mid-table in terms of how much Nato members put into defence.
This year UK defence spending is estimated by Nato to rise to around 2.6% of GDP.
Under Keir’s Starmer’s government, Labour set an “ambition” to spend 3% in the next parliament”, external - without specifying a date.
Andy Burnham has yet to say when the 3% target is expected to be reached - although an announcement is due in the spring.
When John Healey resigned as defence secretary from Starmer’s government he criticised the Treasury for being “unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country”.
In his June resignation letter, Healey - now chancellor - argued the 3% target should be set for 2030 and also called for a “clear path” to reach Nato’s new commitment to spend 3.5% by 2035.
Image source, ReutersMiliband says Labour will stand against antisemitism wherever it finds it, and stand against those who seek the destruction of Israel.
But the foreign secretary says this "cannot justify the suffering the Netanyahu government has inflicted in Gaza and the West Bank", adding that it is a "stain on the conscience of the world".
He says to those who have been "moved and outraged by the plight of Palestinian people - we hear you, you were right".
“Under Andy’s leadership, we have reset our approach. We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank, we call out the evidence of war crimes in Gaza, we call out Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza," he says.
Miliband says the UK will "confront the urgent risks we face from AI".
The technological progress the technology offers is "inspiring", he says, but the threat it poses according to its own inventors is "daunting".
The lesson of history is that "we cannot leave it to corporations to put in place the guardrails to serve the public interest", Miliband says.
The cabinet minister says that as part of the UK's G20 presidency next year, the government will lead efforts to manage AI to keep the country and world safe. "No tech titan should stand in our way," he says.
Image source, PA MediaEd Miliband is speaking now - you can watch his remarks live at the top of the page.
The foreign secretary begins by saying events at RAF Fairford yesterday are a reminder of "the threats our country faces".
His speech is touching on a number of themes, including maintaining the international rules-based system, using economic sanctions to put pressure on the Iranian regime to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
He also talks up the need for closer ties with Europe, saying "our future lies in a stronger, deeper partnership with the European Union", to applause and cheers in the conference.
Miliband says this summer's heat and wildfires are the "latest wake-up call about the climate crisis" and says future generations "will hold us in infamy if we leave them with climate disaster unaddressed".
Image source, UK poolHe ends by praising the work done on defence under the Keir Starmer government, saying it put defence spending up and put the right plans in place.
"Lots done, but a lot more still to do. Because defending our country means more than strengthening our armed forces. It means strengthening the country they defend," he says.
"We will build a country ready to fight, and a Britain worth fighting for," he says, before leaving the stage to applause.
Jennifer McKiernan
Reporting from Liverpool
There's cheers and clapping as Streeting attacks the Conservatives.
He tells the hall "we will wipe the floor with them" over their record of defence cuts, leaving the UK with the lowest troop numbers "since the Napoleonic war".
Streeting says "war has returned to Europe", adding the government has announced the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since Cold War.
He says this commitment to defence spending comes with "choices and trade offs", but "critics on right need to understand you don't make country stronger by making our people poorer".
"To our critics on the left", Streeting says "you are not defending our public services by attacking investment in our national defences".
Streeting is met with cheering and whooping as he announces that the £6bn contract to build docks for nuclear submarines will stay in the UK.
Image source, UK poolStreeting begins by addressing the terror probe related to an incident at RAF Fairford yesterday.
He says he can't provide much further detail than that already reported - but talks up the strength of the UK-US alliance.
"Our friendship with America is the closest alliance of any two nations on Earth, and we will always stand together against those who hate our freedom and those who wish us harm," he says.
"What we saw yesterday from our security services, our armed forces and our police was just a small glimpse of the extraordinary work they do everyday."
You can read more about the latest on RAF Fairford in our other live page here.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has just begun his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.
We'll bring you the key lines, and you can watch live above.
Image source, ReutersDefence Secretary Wes Streeting is due to speak at the Labour Party conference shortly, but he's already been doing the morning media rounds.
The cabinet minister said it was too early in the investigation into an incident at RAF Fairford at the weekend - five men have been arrested on suspicion of explosive and terrorism offences - for him to share details or speculate.
Chancellor John Healey is expected to say today that three new floating docks at HM Naval Base Clyde, Faslane, will be constructed by UK industry. Streeting praised it as good for both jobs and national security.
"Today we're putting our money where our mouth is, quite literally, backing Britain by buying British," Streeting told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The "default" government position previously would have been for an international procurement process, he said, adding that could have seen taxpayers' money going overseas "creating jobs somewhere else, for someone else".
Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith said the plans were "reheated announcements" with "no clarity on where the money is coming from".
