Francis Maude - Conservative chairman

Question: What is the thinking behind the decision to have so many people from outside the party addressing conference?

Francis Maude: Party conference is not just about the party talking to itself, it's about us talking to the country and us hearing from the country - so it will be a lot more interactive.

We will be having a series of people from outside the party and also international figures engaging Conservatives on some of the great issues of the day.

We think that makes a lot of sense as we want to engage with the great issues of the day and the problems Britain is facing.

Question: Given the policy reviews are yet to report, there can't be much serious policy work on the cards?

Francis Maude: There will a lot of policy work done as part of the process. There won't be a huge amount of finished policy delivered but we are not facing an immediate election.

It has only been 16 months since we lost the last general election and it would look incredibly arrogant if we were to have come to conclusions on every policy.

The policy process that Oliver Letwin is supervising is very comprehensive and very wide-ranging and it is not going to produce concrete results until the summer of next year, and then it will take time for the party to digest and sift those policy ideas and produce concrete policy following that.

Having said that, this conference will be rich in ideas, in analysis and understanding of problems and the debating of ideas.

We will be having some hot topic debates with the innovative idea, in modern party conference terms, of having votes on issues.

It will be invigorating, it will be stimulating and these are things that people care about.

We'll be discussing issues like should there be advertising to children, and are cheap air fares a false economy?

It will allow us to explore a range of issues.

Question: Lord Lamont has recently told David Cameron to get on with developing policy - what do you think of his comment?

Francis Maude: To Norman talking about moving ahead with policy, I would say that was good advice and we are.

When we published the revised edition of 'Built to last' you will see there is a lot more detail in it.

It was not a comprehensive manifesto, it never was meant to be. It was meant to be a statement of aims and values and that's what it was.

The Lord's Prayer contains 126 words, the 10 commandments doesn't contain that much more - you don't to have a 10,000 page document to be substantive.

There is plenty of substance in it and there is plenty more elaboration of detail in the revised version.

Obviously as time goes on it will be expanded yet further. The idea that there is a huge unsatisfied bunch of people out there who are desperate to read 'Sub-chapter 13, Section B, Point two' of our policy on widgets is plainly wrong.

We have all produced lots of policy in the past and what people want to know now is the kinds of things that we are about.

They want to know that we are a party that is more green, more local and more family friendly - but also that we mean it and that these are not just words, and you can see it in the various things that we are doing.

Questions: So you must have been disappointed that only about a quarter of the party membership voted in favour of the document?

Francis Maude: It wasn't a lot but I think that is just evidence that we are not a very ideological party.

What I sense from our members is great excitement that we are once again a party that is heading for success and that we are out-polling Labour, that we had our best local election results since about 1985 - we are not there yet but we are headed in the right direction.

Question: Edward Leigh recently told the House Magazine that the leadership is in danger of alienating the grassroots, right wing of the party in this modernisation drive. Is that a concern you share?

Francis Maude: Tim Montgomerie talks about the 'and' theory of politics.

When we talk about the need, and it is a real need, for us to broaden our appeal from one-third of the vote, which has been the case for about 15 years, to much nearer a half then you have got to reach to people we haven't reached before.

That needs to be in addition to people who are already supporters and not all of those people will support us for the same reasons, which is inevitable when you are a very broad party, as we have to be in a two-and-a-half party system as it is in Britain.

You need to be electable, you need to be appealing to about 45 per cent and some of those people will support you for ideological reasons, some will be specifically policy orientated, some will think we are the kind of people who are more in tune with their aspirations and seem to represent the future of Britain better.

There is nothing revolutionary about that but everyone will hear that ours is a message of change, optimism and hope and they will see a party that is more green, more local, and more family friendly and less arrogant about the ability of politicians to solve every problem.