Rishi Sunak has said the Conservatives should “learn the lessons” of their general election defeat while Lord Houchen has warned the party is facing a “huge job” to regain support, as the Tory conference got under way.

Mr Sunak said he “will always be sorry” that “he could not deliver the results that everyone’s efforts deserved”, at the start of his final conference as leader.

The contest to replace Mr Sunak will feature prominently at the gathering in Birmingham as Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly are all vying for the leadership.

The winner of the leadership contest is due to be announced at the start of November.

placeholder image — Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen

He described the conference as an “important moment for our party”.

He added: “This is our first conference in opposition since 2009. Of course, we need to learn the lessons of our defeat: we did not get everything right in government - no government ever does - and we do now need to reflect on that. But we should not forget what we have achieved since 2010.”

The Richmond MP said it was now the Tories’ “duty to fulfil our role as the official opposition professionally and effectively” pointing to their opposition to the winter fuel payment cut, and holding the government to account on taxation.

Speaking about the loss of Conservative MPs in the North, Tees Valley Mayor Lord Houchen, said he had been taken aback by the number of votes which went to other parties, in particular to Reform.

He said: “We also as well, let’s not forget, lost a huge number of votes to people that stayed at home, didn’t want to vote for anybody else.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be good. I honestly didn’t think it was going to be as bad as it was and I think hopefully that will lead the Conservative Party to reflect on the amount of work that needs to be done before we can be a fighting force to get back into power again. So there’s a huge job to do with our own base, with people who voted Labour who’ve voted Conservative.”

On what the public should take away from this year’s Conservative Party Conference, the mayor said: “I think the biggest thing I would like the public to take away from this is that we take the loss seriously and we reflect (on) exactly what we got wrong over certainly the last couple of years – the infighting, the loss of trust, the fact that people don’t see us as competent any more.

“And they seriously look at us and see that we get it and that we are going to reflect on it, we’re going to go away, we’re going to come back with a new agenda, a new leader, and hopefully fight the Labour Party at the next general election.”

Meanwhile, former party leader Lord Hague, has said that it “would be better” if the party’s leadership was decided by MPs, rather than the membership.

Asked about the membership making the final decision on who will be party leader, the former North Yorkshire MP said: “That’s my fault, I introduced these rules. But now we can see the world has changed, political parties are smaller.

“It would be better if the decision was in the hands of Members of Parliament because the party membership has become so small.”

However, he said that MPs “still play a very big role” so “they have to be very careful who they support in case they give the impression to the members that they’re happy with someone they’re not really happy with”.

Lord Hague warned the winner that there will be “a long haul”.

Asked iwhat advice he would give the winner, he said: “The Labour government will be vulnerable, even in four or five years’ time.

“But that does not mean that people will see the Conservatives as the natural replacement for them, unless we have a very single-minded leader who can communicate values, appeal to new generations and talk about the issues of the future.”