Sunak says he wants to close with a reference to the armed forces, with Armistice Day coming up.

They are the best of us, he says.

Labour tried to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, a man who wanted to abolish the armed forces, who wanted to withdraw from Nato, and who sided with the UK’s enemies, he says.

He says, above all, the king’s speech delivers change. It takes long-term decisions for a better future, he says.

Sunak defends his plans on net zero. He claims Starmer is not against all oil and gas – just British oil and gas.

He says the government will create the first smoke-free generation.

He says he is most proud of the Conservative party’s record on education. Under his plans, people will study maths and English up to 18, he says.

And he says he is particularly proud of Network North, which he says is the most ambitous scheme for transport in the north from any government.

Chris Bryant (Lab) intervened. He said many people who sleep rough are army veterans or have brain injuries. Does he agree with Suella Braverman that homelessness is a lifestyle choice? And if he doesn’t, will he sack her?

Sunak said homelessness among veterans was at a record low. And he said rough sleeping was down by a third from its peak.

Sunak is saying very little about what is in the king’s speech. Instead he is focusing more on criticising Labour.

He says the government has introduced freeports, using Brexit freedoms that Starmer would abandon.

And he also claims that Labour would allow an extra 100,000 EU migrants into the UK every year.

The Full Fact factchecking organisation has published a factcheck on this claim in the past. It says it is misleading.

Sunak says Labour will borrow and copy anything – as Rachel Reeves showed with her book.

And he claims Starmer was going to write a book but abandoned the idea – after his publishers concluded he did not have a vision.

Sunak is now paying tribute to Robert Goodwill and Siobhan Baillie for their speeches, and their parliamentary records more generally.

Both speeches, apparently, were “in the finest traditions of this house”.

Turning to Starmer, he claims Starmer has abandoned his previous republicanism, which he says he welcomes as a U-turn.

Rishi Sunak is speaking now.

He started by talking about Israel and Gaza, stressing the UK’s support for Israel’s right to defend himself.

He said more than 100 Britons have now left Gaza.

And he said the government would “not stand for the hatred and antisemitism we have seen on our streets”. He went on:

It sickens me to think that British Jews are looking over their shoulder in this country that children are going to school covering up their school badges for fear of attack.

This government will do whatever it takes to keep the Jewish community safe.

Starmer dimisses king’s speech as ‘exercise in economic miserablism’

Starmer says Sunak cannot be serious PM with Braverman as home secretary pursuing her ‘divisive brand of politics’

Turning to Gaza, Starmer says Israel has a right to defend itself. But he says that is not a blank cheque. It must comply with international law.

UPDATE: Starmer said:

It is now one month exactly since the senseless murder of Jews by the terrorists of Hamas and the taking of hostages on October 7.

And every new day in Gaza now brings with it more pain, more suffering, more agony. Hostages still held. Thousands of civilians dead, including so many innocent women and children, millions struggling for the basics of life – food, water, sanitation, medicines and fuel.

We cannot and we will not close our eyes to their suffering. We need a humanitarian pause now. The hostages to be released now.

Israel has the right and duty to defend herself but it is not a blank cheque, it must comply with international law and this House must commit to do whatever it can to keep alive the light of peace, so we welcome the address’s clear commitment to support the two-state solution.

Starmer has now dispensed with the formalities, and he is on to the substance of the king’s speech.

Rather, he complains about the lack of substance. He says the measure in it are “sticking plasters”.

He accuses Rishi Sunak of putting up taxes 25 times.

He says Labour will support some measures, like the Martyn’s law plan, and the proposal for an independent football regulator.

And Labour will vote for the plan to stop younger generations everbeing able to buy cigarettes.

Starmer pays tribute to MPs who have died over the past year – Jack Dromey, Cheryl Gillan and James Brokenshire.

And he says he is expected to welcome new members at this point – although that could take time, he says. He says there are 11 new MPs who were not here at the start of the last session – one Conservative, two Lib Dems, and eight Labour MPs.

Keir Starmer is speaking. He starts by paying tribute to the two backbenchers who proposed and seconded the loyal address, and he is particularly positive about Siobhan Baillie, saying he can understand why Rishi Sunak turned to “a working class lawyer with a connection to Camden”. Baillie was a councillor in the borough, and Starmer says she is respected there across all parties.

Baillie refers to Rishi Sunak as the hardest-working PM she has known – “and I’ve known quite a few recently”.

That is the second joke about the Tories’ rapid prime ministerial turnover over the past 18 months. In his speech Sir Robert Goodwill referred to the Tories having had three female prime ministers – although he said he was not sure whether the last one counted (as a PM, he meant, because Liz Truss was out so quickly, not as a woman).

Baillie recalls a fellow MP telling her in the library “come and see my tortoise”. As he was a public school boy, she feared some innuendo. But he was referring to a real tortoise, belonging to the speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, she says. (Hoyle is an animal lover, with a menagerie of pets.)

Siobhan Baillie, MP for Stroud, is speaking now. She praises her constituency, saying it is “the quirky bit of the Cotswolds”.

Goodwill ends with a story about campaigning on an estate in his constituency that was very pro-Labour. He recalls meeting a woman who said she was very pro-Boris Johnson. She said he was “one of us”. Goodwill says he asked why she said that, given Johnson had been to Eton and Oxford. The woman replied:

You don’t understand. He had a row with his wife and the police came round.

Back in the Commons Goodwill is giving a potted history of his career, with some reasonably funny jokes.

He recalls one campaign where posters went up asking what the difference was between Goodwill and a supermarket trolley. The local paper provided the answer – a supermarket trolley has a mind of its own, it said.

Goodwill admits he has never voted against the party whip.

But he has another answer to the question.

The real answer to the question: ‘What is the difference between an MP and a supermarket trolley?’ is that, with a trolley, there is a physical limit to the amount of food and drink you can get into it.

According to Jon Craig on Sky News, Labour sources are suggesting that the king’s speech might be particularly thin this year because Rishi Sunak is planning a May election.

Senior Labour MP & close ally of Keir Starmer tells me Labour MPs are now speculating that Govt’s “light” programme of legislation, only 20 or so Bills including many carried over, suggests Rishi Sunak is plotting early general election in May next year. Oo er!

The convention wisdom at Westminster is that the election will be in the autumn or early winter next year. The assumption is that, faced with a choice of six more months as PM or 12 months, Sunak will opt for the latter.

UPDATE: This is from Cat Neilan from Tortoise.