Penny Mordaunt rules out ever agreeing to indyref2

Meanwhile, her rival, Tom Tugendhat told the BBC that it was a ”generational decision” and that a “generation hasn't passed." 

The comments came as the race to become the next leader of the Conservative Party intensified.

The five candidates will go head to head tonight for the second televised debate. How they fare could be instrumental in tomorrow’s round of voting, where at least one of the hopefuls will be eliminated.

All were asked to appear on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, but only Ms Mordaunt and Mr Tugendhat agreed.

Unlike the other four candidates, Liz Truss has yet to agree to a single broadcast interview. 

During her appearance, Ms Mordaunt was pushed on her integrity over claims she misled people during the Brexit referendum and on her opposition to changing policy on trans recognition. 

In the first televised debate on Friday, former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and Ms Truss claimed Ms Mordaunt had backed a push for self-ID, removing the need for medical intervention for those who wish to legally recognised as the gender they live in. 

The two said that together they had reversed the policy.

However, Ms Mordaunt has rejected the claims, insisting that she has been opposed to self-ID. 

But documents obtained by the Sunday Times appeared to cast doubt on this, suggesting Ms Mordaunt was in favour of removing at least one element of the medical process required for transgender people to legally transition.

It said another paper from February 2020 confirmed that the Government’s support for self-identification ended after she was replaced as the minister in charge.

Ms Mordaunt described the claims as “smears.”

She told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme: “This has been rebutted many times. We all know what is going on. This is the type of toxic politics people want to get away from.

“We did a consultation. We asked healthcare professionals what they thought about the situation. That is the section I looked after. I managed that consultation. We didn’t actually on my shift produce a policy.

“There is a number of smears going on in the papers. My colleagues are very angry and upset that this is how the leadership contest is being dragged down.”

Later asked if there were any circumstances in which she would agree to an independence referendum, Ms Mordaunt said:  "It's a settled question.” 

Pushed for a yes or no answer, she replied: “No."

Tory leadership contender Tom Tugendhat has said the party needs a “clean start” after three years of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Mr Tugendhat said it was clear that the Prime Minister’s account of the “partygate” scandal was “rather more fictional than reality”.

“What we need to see is a clean start. That is the most essential issue. In two years’ time we are going to be facing Keir Starmer in a general election,” he said.

“We need to make sure that all the attack lines that have been used against us in the last three years don’t come back in a general election.

“We need to make sure absolutely that what we are able to deliver is championing Conservative policies and deliver a Conservative vision for the future.”

When he was asked if there were any circumstances in which she would agree to an independence referendum, Mr Tugrendhat replied:  " "It's a generational decision. A generation hasn't passed."

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who is backing Rishi Sunak, said the other candidates backing immediate tax cuts needed to explain how they would be paid for.

He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “You can’t borrow your way out of an inflation crisis.

“If people are suggesting we should make cuts to the NHS at a time not just of Covid, but all the other non-Covid NHS challenges, they have got to spell out where they are coming from.

“We want to all leave people with more money in their pocket. But if you cut taxes and inflation robs people of that money because it is worthless or sees interest rates go up so their mortgage is more expensive, then frankly it is a false economy.”

Asked about comments by Ms Truss, who said that current policies had led to years of low growth, Mr Raab said: “Liz can answer for her policies and her record.

“She was chief secretary in the Treasury. People can see whether spending and the head count in the Civil Service went up or down. That’s for them to work out.”

Former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is backing Ms Truss, said the Treasury, under Mr Sunak's leadership, had set the country on the "wrong course".

He said: “We’ve got an inflationary spiral going on, now we’ve got the war in Ukraine, that’s made it even worse with regards to energy, but here in the UK we do have to bear some of the blame for the fact that we have inflation rising on top of all of that.

“And that’s down to the Bank of England and the Treasury’s failure over, I think, monetary policy. First of all over a year ago the Bank actually kept on printing huge sums of money, which has inflated the economy as well as keeping interest rates low.

“It was the Treasury that signed off on that money printing, the Chancellor no less, so before they say ‘oh it’s independent’, the Treasury has the right to say no to the money printing bit and they didn’t, that has fuelled inflation.”

On the current economic approach, Sir Iain added: “If you have the tax rates at the rate they are with more to come – corporation tax – you are going to bring our economy into recession, that’s what’s forecast now. If we go into recession whilst we have high inflation, that’s stagflation.”