Ed Davey says Liberal Democrats will be ‘responsible opposition’ to Labour – as it happened

Davey is now talking about care, and the remarkable response he says he got after the Lib Dems released an election video in which Davey talked about his experiences caring for his disabled son.

Each time I speak about my story, I’m humbled by the number of people who get in touch to say “that’s my story too”.

But I confess I wasn’t prepared for so many incredible, heartfelt responses to that election broadcast.

People of all walks of life, of all political parties and none.

Like the couple whose adult son has similar care needs to John. Who kindly reached out to say that they know how it feels – especially the worry you have about what’s going to happen after you’re gone.

Just like Emily and I worry about John.

He says carers were not mentioned in Labour’s manifesto, or in the king’s speech. But there were mentioned at the first PMQs – because Davey asked about them, he says.

This is an example of the role the Lib Dems can play in opposition, he says.

This, friends, is the role all our 72 MPs will play in this parliament.

Using our strength – as not only once again the third party in the House of Commons but also the largest third party in a century –

To be the responsible opposition to this government.

And to speak up for people in our communities – taken for granted and ignored by the others.

Davey is turning to health and care, the two issues he says were at the heart of the party’s campaign.

Echoing the argument made by Daisy Cooper yesterday, he says it was a Liberal, William Beveridge, who invented the NHS. He goes on:

We need to transform the way we do health and care in this country.

And our MPs have already taken the lead on that in this new parliament.

There’s a reason Wes Streeting calls us his 72 new pen pals.

Because from the second each of our MPs entered parliament they were on the case.

Speaking up for all those people who’ve watched their loved ones waiting hours in pain and distress for an ambulance to arrive.

And patients waiting weeks just to see their GP, while their illness got worse and worse.

Parents searching in vain for an NHS dentist for their kids.

And cancer patients waiting months or even years to start treatment.

Davey says fixing the NHS won’t be easy. But it can be done, he says, and he calls for more investment in frontline services.

Starting with a whole new focus on community services – helping people to get care more quickly and more locally – with more GPs, more NHS dentists and more community pharmacists.

So fewer people end up in hospital in the first place.

Davey says investment in the NHS will save money in the long run.

The problem is, the Treasury simply isn’t wired to think this way.

Instead, we have the short-term negative thinking that leads governments to postpone hospital repairs and cancel new buildings.

Short-term thinking to save a bit of money now – even though you know it will only cost a lot more in the future.

Practically every year I can remember, governments have ended up announcing hundreds of millions of pounds of emergency funding to help the NHS through another winter crisis.

To paper over the cracks.

What if – instead of stumbling from crisis to crisis, instead of throwing more and more money at just plugging the gaps – what if we invested now to make the NHS winterproof?

The government could and should make this year the last winter crisis in our NHS.

So I urge Labour: do not make the same mistakes the Conservative party did.

Be more positive. Act now.

Davey says he wants to remind people who far the party has come in the last four years, when he first spoke to them as leader.

At that point Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings were in No 10, and still on speaking terms. And Rishi Sunak, as chancellor, was the most popular politician in the country.

He recalls byelection victories, and the Lib Dems gaining 700 seats in local elections.

Local government and community politics “have always been the bedrock of our party”, he says.

For it’s in our communities, door-to-door, where we can truly hear what people are worried about. And where we can rebuild trust.

Trust. The single most powerful commodity in a democracy.

Humbling and hard-won.

In July, millions of voters put their trust in us – many of them for the first time in their lives.

Trusting us to stand up for them. To be their local champions. To fight for a fair deal.

That trust – the people’s trust – is our mandate. And now we must be true to that mandate and repay that trust in full.

Davey thanks party staff for their work.

And he goes on:

And let me shine a spotlight on a second group of people whose contribution to our success isn’t recognised as much as it should be.

I’m talking about all those candidates and all those local parties who set aside their own ambitions to go and help colleagues in target seats. The candidates who didn’t win.

As scripture tells us, in the Book of McCobb, chapter 2, verse 7:

“Greater love hath no candidate than this, that they and their team go canvassing in a nearby target seat.”

Dave McCobb is the party’s campaign director.

Ed Davey starts with a joke about his campaign hijinks.

Do you know they wanted me to wear a wetsuit today? But I said it was abseiling or nothing?

Winning 72 seats was the best result in the party’s modern history, he says.

And Conference, how fitting it was that the final seat to declare – number 72 – was the home of one of the great champions of that more liberal society.

Our dear friend Charles Kennedy.

Davey thanks party members. And he invites them to applaud themselves.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is on the stage now.

He is singing Abba, Take a Chance on Me.

(The last party leader who came on stage to Abba was Theresa May.)

The video is now showing some of Davey’s election campaign whacky photocall stunts.

And it ends with a reminder that the election led to a six-fold increase in the number of Lib Dem MPs.

At the Lib Dem conference they are now showing a video about Ed Davey, which starts with him talking about his decision to talk more often and more openly about his severely disabled son, and Davey’s life as a carer looking after him.

At the Lib Dem conference Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader, is welcoming the party’s 72 MPs onto the stage.

They just keep coming.

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The Tories are using the government’s decision to cut winter fuel payments to help raise funds for the party, Kevin Schofield reports in a story for HuffPost UK. He says an email has been sent to to supporters urging them to “chip in any amount” to help the parties campaign against the policy.