General election 2024 latest: Sunak unveils immigration cap as Starmer vows GB Energy will ‘close door on Putin’

• Sir Keir Starmer will make an energy policy announcement on a campaign visit to North West.

• Home Secretary James Cleverly campaigning in the South East.
• Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey campaign visits to Cheadle this morning and North Shropshire this afternoon.
• Rachel Reeves and Anas Sarwar will hold a Q&A in Edinburgh with staff working in financial services.

• Nigel Farage to launch General Election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.

• Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer in ITV General Election debate.
• The debate will be followed by interviews with leaders of other parties with the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Reform UK and the Greens invited.

The Liberal Democrat leader has said he has “ruled out” working with the Tories if there is a hung parliament.

“The Conservatives has frankly ruined this country,” Sir Ed Davey said. “They have taken so many people for granted, including their own voters.”

The Conservative Party has released a video starring home secretary James Cleverly, listing “three ways Labour screwed up immigration”.

The Tories are desperately scrambling to get up to 141 candidates in place ahead of the deadline at 4pm on Friday.

Among the last ditch selections will be party members in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich tonight making a decision on whether to adopt party chairman Richard Holden amid a row that he is being “parachuted” into the constituency after “going on a chicken run” from the north east of England.

The seat was left open as a result of Dr Dan Poulter defecting to Labour from the Conservatives a few weeks before the election was called.

The home secretary was asked if his message to colleagues is “do not panic” following Monday’s disastrous polling results for Tories.

James Cleverly told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My message to my colleagues is: knock on doors, talk to voters, listen to what they say and explain our position right up until 10am on 4 July.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly said Labour’s new “border command” that would work with other countries to co-ordinate in tackling people-smuggling gangs “already exists”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: “The other thing which I think is really quite remarkable, and under-commented upon if you don’t mind me saying, is that Labour’s big reveal, this border command, already exists.

“It’s called the Small Boats Operational Command, it’s commanded by a British Army General, it already liaises with domestic and international law enforcement and intelligence services.

“Now, either Yvette Cooper does not know this organisation exists, which is pretty embarrassing for the shadow home secretary, or she does know it exists and she’s pretending it doesn’t.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly said the Tory Party’s commitment to capping the number of visas will balance “the benefits and the cost” of migration.

Asked on BBC Breakfast why they are not putting a number on the annual cap in visas, he said: “Well, we know that immigration, legal migration, has been too high over the last couple of years.

“We’ve taken measures already which, as your report said, has now started to bring those figures down, measures that were opposed at the time by the Labour Party.

“But we also recognise, as your report said, there are benefits to migration. My mother came here as a migrant, as did many other people in the UK who have contributed enormously to our society and to our economy.

“But migration – just as with every other public policy – comes at a cost and balancing the benefits and cost is what our new policy is going to do.

“So, for the first time, we’re going to get the Migration Advisory Committee to crunch the numbers to look at both the benefit and the costs of migration levels. The Government will then set a cap on the number of visas it will issue in that year, something that will then be voted on by Parliament.

“This will make sure we properly balance both the numbers of people coming here and the benefit they bring, but also the cost, whether it’s school places, housing demand, health places, etc.”