Boris Johnson has promised to “get on with the job” of uniting and levelling up the UK, in a speech to the Conservative Party conference.

In an upbeat address peppered with jokes, but light on new policy, the prime minister claimed a high-wage, high-skilled economy was being created in the wake of Brexit and the pandemic.

He also defended tax rises to pay for the NHS and vowed to fix social care.

The 45-minute speech was his first to a conference since the pandemic began.

In it, the prime minister said the overwhelming Conservative general election victory in 2019 placed an onus on his government to deliver change demanded by voters.

The main theme of his speech was “levelling up”, with the PM saying that reducing gaps between regions would ease pressure on south-eastern England, while boosting places that felt left behind.

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He also repeated pledges set out at during his party’s conference this week in Manchester to crack down on crime, improve transport links and broadband, and reform the housing market.

And he sought to reassure Tories anxious about plans to increase National Insurance to pay for the NHS and social care by claiming it was what predecessor Margaret Thatcher would have done, if the economy had been hit by a “meteorite” like the pandemic.