Donaldson refuses to endorse claim by DUP colleagues who say Biden is ‘anti-British’ – as it happened

5.12pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Joe Biden has dangled a $6bn (£5bn) carrot in front of Northern Ireland’s leaders with a promise to boost the country’s economy with US investment if power sharing is restored.

• Scottish ministers will mount a court challenge to the UK government’s veto of Holyrood’s gender recognition reform bill, setting up the new first minister, Humza Yousaf, for a constitutional showdown only two weeks after his election as SNP leader.

• Rishi Sunak has refused to comment directly on the Labour attack ad smear claiming that he does not believe adults who sexually assault children should go to prison. (See 2.30pm.) Keir Starmer has defended Labour’s right to attack Sunak over what the Tories have done during their whole 13 years in power, even though Sunak was not even an MP until 2015. (See 3.20pm.)

• Britain’s national debt will continue to climb over the next five years, putting at risk one of Rishi Sunak’s key pledges to voters, the International Monetary Fund has predicted in a report.

• Matt Hancock, the former Tory health secretary, is among three MPs who have been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog.

Joe Biden greeting children at Dublin airport this afternoon. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Updated at 5.18pm BST

4.59pm BST

Liz Truss has delivered her speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington. As Aubrey Allegretti reported in his overnight story, based on extracts released in advance, she criticised Emmanuel Macron, the French president, for the stance he took when he visited China last week.

As Jason Groves from the Mail and Matt Honeycombe-Foster from Politico report, in her Q&A Truss went even further, describing Macron’s visit as a “mistake”.

Liz Truss says Macron's visit to China was 'a mistake', and accuses the French President of peddling a false narrative that there is a 'moral equivalence' between China and the West

— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) April 12, 2023

More Macron digs from Truss in the Q&A. Ex-PM says French prez guilty of "moral equivalence" between U.S. and China.

— Matt Honeycombe-Foster (@matt_hfoster) April 12, 2023

Truss: "It is a totalitarian regime and we need to adapt our policies accordingly. And we need to be much more sceptical about what is said by China and what their promises are ... I don't agree at all with the visit by Ursula von der Leyen & Macron. I think it was a mistake."

— Matt Honeycombe-Foster (@matt_hfoster) April 12, 2023

In her main speech, as my colleague David Smith reports, she says she failed to implement her plans as PM because she faced “coordinated resistance” which was much stronger than she expected. Most commentators concluded that she failed because her mini-budget alarmed the financial markets, and came close to crashing the pensions industry, but Truss did not acknowledge any fault with her policies in her speech or Q&A afterwards.

Truss: There are groups invested in maintaining the status quo. "As prime minister, I simply underestimated the scale and depth of this resistance." My plans were "about making Britain more competitive... We faced coordinated resistance."

— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 12, 2023

Liz Truss speaking to the Heritage Foundation this afternoon. Photograph: Heritage Foundation/PA

Updated at 5.02pm BST