PM lays out vision for post coronavirus UK

UK PM Boris Johnson has vowed to defeat Covid and build a better country over the next decade in his leader's speech to the virtual Conservative conference. Evoking the UK's recovery from World War Two, he said he wanted to build a 'new Jerusalem', with opportunity for all, improved housing and healthcare.

The prime minister also mounted a robust defence of the private sector, saying “free enterprise” must lead the recovery and that that he intended to significantly roll back the extraordinary state intervention the crisis had necessitated.

Among the key pledges in the speech, Johnson said the government would:

• Make the UK a "world leader" in green energy, announcing £160m of investment in ports and factories to increase electricity generation from offshore wind
• Fix care-home funding, hinting at the prospect of an insurance-style model
• Explore the value of one-to-one teaching, both for pupils falling behind and those with exceptional abilities
• Boost housebuilding through changes to England's "sclerotic" planning system, and improving access to low-deposit mortgages for first-time buyers

Mr Johnson said the pandemic had "forced" the government into massively expanding the role of the state but warned against drawing the "wrong economic conclusion from this crisis".

The PM praised the UK's fight against the virus, saying he had had "more than enough" of the disease - which he insisted would be overcome by "collective effort".

He insisted the pandemic could not be allowed to "hold us back or slow us down" and the country that emerged from the crisis would be very different from the one that preceded it.