Transcripts For CSPAN British Election Party Leaders Debate 20150406

Communicators, author vincent mosso on the cloud data and how the government is using it. The nsa is building one of the Worlds Largest Cloud Data Centers in a secure mountain facility in utah. It is doing so because its surveillance needs require that degree of storage and security. The u. S. Governments chief information officer, three or four years ago, ordered the agency to move to the cloud. As a result, even civilian agencies are turning to cloud services. Monday night at eight eastern on the communicators on cspan2. British parliament is in recess until after the may 7 election, so Prime Ministers questions when i be seen tonight. On thursday, itv posted the first Leaders Debate featuring all seven Party Leaders including Prime Minister David Cameron at Opposition Leader ed miliband. The leaders clashed over questions on taxation, immigration, education, and changes to the National Health service. This event is two hours. Salford, Greater Manchester a city proud of its heritage. And tonight the setting for a remarkable political debate in the closest general election in decades. Seven Party Leaders go face to face live in the itv Leaders Debate. [applause] [applause] host good evening. Here in the studios tonight are seven Party Leaders with different visions for the future of our country. Over the next two hours they will debate head to head in front of our studio audience here tonight. Tonight will be about some of the biggest issues facing britain, questions at the heart of this election. The main parties in scotland wales, and england are all represented here this evening. The leaders are Natalie Bennett of the green party, nick clegg of the liberal democrats, nigel farage of the u. K. Independence party, ed miliband, labour leanne wood of the plaid cymru the party of wales, nicholas sturgeon of the Scottish National party, and David Cameron for the conservatives. [applause] our questions will focus on the big political issues we all care about and that effect every day life. You can get instant analysis by going to our website. If you want to comment the twitter hashtag is leadersdebate. The order in which they go have been decided by drawing lots. First, Natalie Bennett, your opening statement. Bennett you were told that austerity, inequality, bankers bonuses were inevitable. They were not. You all deserve better. Lets put principles and values first. That is why i got into politics. The green party is determined to deliver a fair economy that does not make the poor and disadvantaged pay for the errors of the bankers. Were committed to returning to returning the nhs to the founding principles, no private money going into private into public coffers. We know we must take real action on climate change. The biggest threat to us all. Other parties trade in fear. Fear of immigrants, demonizing people on benefits. But to build a decent, Humane Society we start with hope. Vote for change, vote green. Host thank you. Now we go to nigel farage. Farage they may look different, but on some of the big issues, they are very much the same. All six support britains membership of the European Union and most of our laws being made somewhere else. As a consequence, all of them support opendoor immigration. Is it any wonder the trust in politics is broken down to the extent it has . I represent ukip and we believe this country should be a selfgoverning nation. We believe we are getting to do that. We believe this opendoor immigration depressed the wages, made buying houses for youngsters very difficult. Made it tough to get an appointment and not being different countries. We have a positive alternative. Lets take back control our own borders so we can choose the quantity and quality of two comes to britain. By doing that we will give you working people and even break. Clegg i think it is pretty obvious no one standing here will win the election outright. Well have to choose who will have to work with who. I am not going to pretend everything is perfect although , the country is in a lot better shape than five years ago. I will not even pretend i have not made mistakes. What you will get from me and from the liberal democrats is this, the grit and resilience to finish the job of balancing the books. I will always act responsibly. I will never let anyone else are anyone else borrow money we dont have and jeopardize your jobs and the economy. About all, i will always act fairly. I will not let anyone else impose ideological cuffs on your ideological cuts on your hospitals and your schools and will always serve the whole of the country. Not just parts but the whole of the United Kingdom. Sturgeon this is a chance to serve you better. I know it is not just people in scotland who feel let down by westminster politics. That is why my message to people watching in england and Northern Ireland and wales is one of friendship. I will not pretend i do not want scotland to be independent, i do, but as long as stalin remains part of the westminster system, the snp will work to work with those likeminded to deliver change. Like many of you we want alternative to the pain of austerity, and an end to the tax and nhs privatization. We believe this scarce resources of our country should be invested in the future of our children, not in nuclear weapons. This is a vote to make scotlands voice heard. This will also be a voice for news and progressive politics at westminster for all of us. Cameron five years ago this country was on the brink and we had one of the biggest budget deficits anywhere in the world. For the past five years we have been working with the british people for a longterm economic plan and that plan is working. , almost 2 million more in work. It is a balance plans so we have invested in nhs and reducing the deficit but weve cut taxes for 30 million working people. The plan is working because last year we had the Fastest Growing economy of any of the major western countries. Tonight you will hear a lot of people claiming a lot of things, but please remember these are the same people that claimed if we followed the plan unemployment would go up, the deficit would not come down, the economy would not grow, Public Services would be destroyed. They were wrong then, and they are now. The choice of the election is sticking with the plan that is working or going back to get, taxes to debt, taxes borrowing and spending that got us into the mess in the first place. Britain can do some much better than that. Leanne i am speaking to everyone back home in wales tonight. I understand all too well the difficulties that have been faced by our communities in recent years. You tell me that jobs and services have been cut to the bone, and they can be cut no more. Plaid cymru offers an alternative, hope for the people young people for thriving and successful communities. We can win for wales, but we can only do that with you are support. I am asking you to support plan support plaid cymru the party , of wales, to make our communities as strong as they can be. Please support plaid cymru to make plaid cymru waless voice in westminster. Miliband here is what i believe, britain succeeds when working people succeed. That is not the way it has been for five years. For five years wages have not kept up with bills. For five years, the nhs has been going backwards. For five years, our young people have been fearing they will have a worse life than their parents. It does not have to be this way. If i am Prime Minister, i will raise the minimum wage to eight pounds per hour and band zero our contracts. If i am Prime Minister, i will hire more doctors and nurses. If i am Prime Minister, i will build a future for all of our young people. Cutting the tuition fee from 9000 to 6000 pounds and cut the deficit every year and balance the books. Some people will tell you tonight, this is as good as it gets for britain. I say britain can do so much better than it has done over the last five years. Host Party Leaders, thank you very much for your Opening Statements tonight. The format for tonight is simple. Our audience will put their questions directly to the leaders. Each will have one minute to answer before we open things up for a freeflowing debate. Our first question comes from johnny tudor. As a 17yearold student of politics, how do each of the Party Leaders be able to keep the promise of eliminating the deficit without raising certain taxes or making vast cuts to vital Public Services . Clegg i think it is all about balance. That is why i do not think you should be faced with the stark choice of either cutting too much, David Camerons plan is for 50 billion pounds of cuts way beyond what is needed or , borrowing too much. Miliband wants to borrow 70 more than necessary. It is a balance, and it does mean you need to reduce spending, but you also need to make the wealthiest to pay a bit more through the tax system to balance the books. That is the way you can balance the books, do it fairly and then put money into Public Services. Perhaps most especially the nhs which does more money for the need aging population. The liberal democrat plan will cut less than conservatives and borrow less than labour. Cameron we have a plan that is working. We have taken 3 million of the lowest paid people out of tax. We have almost 2 Million People back to work. I think what is absolutely crucial here is recognizing what our plan involves is balance. We will go on investing in the nhs every year as we have done under this government under the last parliament. We will find savings of 1 out of every 100 pounds the government spends. You need to do that for two more years just as were done for the past five years. The alternative is putting up taxes. I do not want to do that. I think if we go back to the tax, waste, spending, and the debt, all the things that got us into a mess in the first place we would not help working people, we would hurt working people. That is what labour did last time, and we must not let it happen again. Wood under our plan the deficit will be cut from 90 billion to 30 billion by 2020. We see no reason to put arbitrary deadlines on cutting the deficit. The austerity experiment has failed. We were told the deficit would be eliminated, yet debt has gone up. We have faced all of these cuts with so much pain for so little gain. The banks have had a bailout. It is time now for the people to have a bailout and time to invest in Public Services and job creation and to see an end to austerity cuts. Farage the question is right. How can anybody believe these promises . This coalition was put together to reduce the annual deficit to zero. That is why these two guys got together. It is still running at 90 billion sterling every year. More remarkably is the National Debt, which has been going on for hundreds of years. In this five years, the National Debt has doubled from 850 billion to 1. 5 trillion. We need to make cuts and there are places we can start. We can easily cut 10 billion pounds per year from the foreign aid budget. We could save another 10 billion by not paying over money to brussels every single day. We can end vanity projects that will only benefit a tiny number of people, thus saving the parliament 4 billion per year and we need to revisit the barnett formula because english taxpayers are getting a raw deal and we could save 5 billion per year in doing that. Host thank you very much indeed. Miliband we will cut the deficit every year and balance the books, but we will do it in a fairer and better way then tried over the past five years. David cameron promised to eliminate the deficit and he failed. We will have fair taxes and reverse the tax cuts for millionaires. 43,000 pounds for every millionaire in britain. Secondly, we will have common sense spending reduction to outside key areas like education and health, spending will fall. Thirdly, we will do Something Else. Your Living Standards have fallen over the past 5 years. Thats not just bad for people, that has also meant government has not had the tax revenue coming in. That is why this government failed on the deficit. What we will do is by boosting the living standard, the third part of the plan to get the deficit down and balance the books. A fair way and better way for our country. Bennett i think what we are offering is not cuts. We are offering the reversal of austerity, investing in your future and the future of everybody in this room. What we have been doing in looking at the deficit is looking at this the wrong way around. We have been slashing away of Public Services. Probably near you there is a Childrens Center or library closed. Think of a worker in that Childrens Center. She used to be providing an essential Public Service to the community, paying tax and national insurance. She had a modest amount of income to spend in the community. Now that essential service is gone. She is on jobseekers allowance and everybody is much poorer. What we are saying is we need to raise taxes on those that are currently not paying their share. Multinational companies in particular, if they pay their share in the world 6th richest country, we can afford to have a Decent Society and a call to have decent Public Services. Sturgeon cutting the deficit is important. Economic policy should not be an end, it should be a means to People Living better. Austerity is pushing people into poverty. It is holding back economic growth. When Economic Policy is doing all of that, that policy needs to change. I do not agree with the cuts proposed. We should have modest spending increases over the next parliament. It will take slightly longer to eliminate the deficit completely but the deficit would continue to fall. That alternative plan would mean that we have resources to invest in infrastructure and skills and innovation and things to get the economy growing and lifting people out of poverty. That kind of alternative plan must be better than a blind commitment to austerity that does not take any account of the damage being done to our society. Post you have made host you have made your Opening Statements on the first question. Time to open the floor to contest each others arguments. Clegg my question is for David Cameron. He is just said he wants to stay the course. Remarkably the conservative party has said they will not ask the richest in society to make a single extra penny of contribution for balancing the books in the tax system. They want to impose ideologically driven cuts to schools. When i hear the conservatives talk about the choice between competence and chaos, just imagine the chaos in peoples lives, the people who in nhs do not know where to find the money. That is why johnny is right. You need to take a balanced approach. You do need to reduce ending but also ask the richest to make a contribution. It is the only fair way of finishing the job. Prime minister cameron nick is wrong about the plan. This is part of the balance plan that involves putting our money into nhs and cutting taxes. Here is the point, we have to understand why the deficit matters and why we got here. The problem with the real choice is with ed miliband who still thinks the last labor government did not tax too much, spend too much, and borrow too much. If you do not understand the mistake of the past, you cannot provide the leadership for the future. Miliband david, you just said you were tackling tax avoidance. Lets look at the reality on this. You have not acted on the tax havens. You have not acted on hedge funds. We show you how you can raise over a billion pounds for the nhs. It will hire 20,000 more nurses. 5000 more care workers. 3000 more midwives. You have to ask yourself at at home at home, why wont David Cameron act on those hedge funds . They fund his party and he will not have the leadership to tackle Prime Minister cameron once again he is wrong. Just this week we introduced a tax to go after the companies that make money in britain and do not pay tax in britain. Here is what he is not telling you, because he does not support any of the spending reductions, he wants to make a very big cut, put up taxes and cut your pay going into the monthly payslip and taking your money out because he thinks he can spend that money better than you. That would be a great mistake for the country. Sturgeon they argue when they have been hand in glove imposing austerity on the country, he is david said in opening remarks everyone apart from him had been proved wrong over the past five years. That is actually not the case. He missed the target by 150 billion pounds. His policies are pushing children into poverty. One million additional children estimated to be living in this country in poverty by 2020. That is not right. What i want to do, i back ed on using the tax and invest in the children. This country cannot afford more cuts in the next parliament. We need to see spending rise. Farage i am hearing half of the panel saying that we have no problems with the debt at all and the other half saying they have been prudent with spending. There is no question that spending got completely out of control under labour and many thought the coalition would bring it back under control. We had doubled the National Debt in the course of the last five years. Our Debt Repayment is bigger than our and of that our annual Defense Budget and those with Interest Rates close to zero. We have a massive problem here. It seems to me that no one is prepared to admit. What we are done is maxed out credit cards. Yes there is growth in the economy, but at some point we have a dreadful Debt Repayment problem. We have to cut budgets like for an eight. Like foreign aid. Clegg i do not think making the poorest poorer still is necessary the best solution to our problems. It comes back to the simple issue of how you balance the books but do it fairly. I do not believe, unlike cameron and osbourne, you do it by just letting the very richest off scott free. Their plans do not involve a single extra contribution through the tax system. I do not believe it is fair to do what the labour party wants to do which is increase borrowing. Wood the way you have done it so far, balancing the books on the back of the poor. 79,000 people the books are balanced. Wood 30 of young people thank you. Miliband you will hear lots of scaremongering tonight. I think it is a big decision for our country. David cameron wants to double the cuts in spending next year. Is that really a balanced plan . The nhs has gone backwards under David Cameron. I think it is much better to have a fair plan which says those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden. We will make reductions in spending. Bennett there have been two issues covered here. One is the issue of the debt. It is worth saying over the past 100 years, half of it, britain ran a higher debt to gdp ratio. No one worried about it much. The question is why you are borrowing. If you are borrowing for the new council on homes for social rent that we so desperately need, you know you will get a return far into the future. That asset is there for the future generations. The second point about the nature of the cuts, this has been borne overwhelmingly by the most vulnerable in the society. Two thirds of the households affected by the bedroom tax have at least one disabled person. 18000 of the most Vulnerable People in our society, their support slashed away. We have to be a humane, fair and Decent Society in support the society and support the most vulnerable. Cameron the truth about this is we have cut the deficit of half. Only if we stick to the plan. The plan that is working. It is worth remembering as we debate cuts, why did these have to happen . I have the truth about cuts here. This is a copy of the letter that labour left in the treasury when we arrived in government five years ago and it says, i am sorry, we have run out of money. that is the truth of what happened. We have to make the decision because the british economy was on the brink. People were worried on whether we would be able to pay the debt. The top 20 have paid more than the remaining 80 put together. My fear is if they got in power they would do it all over again. Farage you have increased the National Debt in five years more than them in 13 years. Isnt that the truth . Cameron we have cut the deficit miliband there you go again. You cannot talk about the present or the future so you talk about the past. People want to know what we will do for them in the next five years. Lets talk about the future. Lets talk about the choices are working families in the future. Will we have fairer taxes, common sence reduction in spending . Cameron we will keep on with this reduction in unemployment that sees 2 million more people in work. We wont do it with the welfare , spending, and taxes. Host David Cameron, thank you. Farage how can they believe your promises . You have failed in this government to eliminate the deficit. It is running at 90 billion sterling. Cameron we will find one pound of every 100 the government spends and saving that in each of the next two years and do that. Combined with the extra taxes in terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion we will eliminate the deficit. Wood the deficit can be cut but setting arbitrary deadlines is irresponsible. Labour has voted for more austerity. They voted for another 30 billion pounds worth of cuts. In the vallies where i live, we have yet to recover from the recession before last, let alone this one. Your party, ed, represents many areas of wales at all different levels. Do you accept you have failed people in wales because we represent some of the poorest communities in all of the eu and your party is presiding over those communities. Miliband no, i dont. Let me tell you the differences. He refuses to have a mansion tax. Instead he chooses to keep the bedroom tax. I will also have a bankers bonus tax to get our young people back to work. He wants to go much further on the deficit, much further on spending cuts, and that will mean not just that we balance the books that go further. That will mean a crushing impact on Public Services. Let me ask you a question wood our funding has been disadvantaged in wales since 1998. When your party was in power and had an opportunity to sort that out, you did not do it. We deserve an additional 1. 2 billion pounds in wales to get to parity with scotland. If you get into government will you get 1. 2 billion pounds to wales . Farage you are quite right to wales negotiated very bad deal in 1970. This has to be rebalanced. English taxpayers are a bit peeved off with so much of their money going over Hadrians Wall giving people no prescription charges and no university tuition. There needs to be a rebalancing. In the future scotland should receive less money per capita than it currently does. Bennett they have paid more tax in every single year for the past 34 years. The question to ed miliband, ed talks the language of antiausterity but only a few weeks ago he has been through the house of commons with nick clegg and David Cameron to vote for 30 billion pounds of cuts over the next two years. I take a different view to that. I do not believe you can some a cut your way out of the deficit. I think David Cameron is the proof. We need to grow our way out of the deficit. We have experts saying that austerity has held back economic growth. Let these modest spending increases allow us to invest in the things that matter. Why did you vote 30 billion pounds of cuts . Miliband that wasnt what the vote was for. Two weeks ago we had a vote against austerity you have a plan to cut six billion pounds in scotland to the economy. You need to explain what that will mean for the people. Bennett you have a choice in the two largest parties here between austerity heavy and austerity light, and i think David Cameron has been talking a lot about the jobs he created. Lets think about the state of employment in britain today. One in five workers are on a less than living wage. People are being forced into selfemployment not because they choose but because they have no other choice. Clegg i believe that you need to make the cuts because you have to. Cameron makes further cuts because they want to. Cameron that is just simply wrong. It is a balanced plan. It has put more money into the nhs. It has put more burden on some of the richest people through having a stamp duty on expensive properties. But what i am hearing in this debate is whereas i want to save one out of every 100 pounds the government spends to not put up taxes. What i am hearing is more debt and taxes, a lot more debt and taxes. And definitely more taxes. Sturgeon you are proposing an additional 12 billion pound in welfare cuts. Where are those cuts . Cameron in the last parliament we found 21 billion pounds of savings in welfare, because Everybody Knows welfare was overblown and needed to be properly dealt with. What is the alternative to making reductions on welfare . Putting up taxes and reducing peoples pay. Sturgeon one Million People on disability are going to lose 1100 pounds of their benefit. That is not the kind of economic plan i want. I want a plan that protects the vulnerable. Farage i think we should reprioritize government spending. We should put the british people first. And we should worry a bit less about propping up foreign regimes and wasting 10 million per year on foreign aid. And really frankly costing 10 billion per year net to be a member of the European Union. For no trade advantage whatsoever. These are massive evenings we could make. Some of the concerns about social spending and everything else, that is not where the cuts need to come. Lets stop giving foreign money away. Bennet thank you. We want to lift aid to 1 of gdp. Increase the aid because we need a more secure and stable world. That means tackling hunger and tackling disease supporting democracy and human rights. That is what the aid should be for. Miliband i have said there will have to be spending reductions. Outside key areas like nhs and education. David cameron has an extreme plan. I am not going to stand on the stage tonight and say there do not need to be difficult decisions. Cuts will have to come, but we can do it in a balanced and fair way. Host thank you very much Party Leaders on the first question of the evening. Our next question is on the nhs , an area where powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the assemblies in wales and Northern Ireland. This is about the election of the debate at westminster and matters in england. Our question comes from terry kelly. As a 63yearold, i have grown up with the nhs and recently retired after working there. My question is this, how will your party ensure longterm funding for the nhs whilst keeping it as a Public Service accessible to all . Host thank you, terry. Nigel like you, i care about the nhs because i have had so many scrapes in my life i have needed it far more than most people. When it comes to emergency care, it probably is the best in the world. That does not mean some things do not occasionally go wrong. The whole question of how we fund the service with a population rapidly rising and aging is a huge question. We have a big internal debate in our party about it. We have decided the best way to do it is run it efficiently, a Public Service free at the point of access, but to recognize there has been a 48 growth in middle management of nhs since 1997. The labour party attempted to privatize large parts of the Health Service. I also do not believe it has worked. I would put an extra 3 billion pounds in from savings from the eu contributions and would stop attacks on illness by ending hospital parking charges. Sturgeon in scotland, we have already ended parking charges. This is a really important question. The nhs is the most precious Public Service we have got. I was Scottish Health secretary for five years. In scotland we protect the budget of the nhs, and we will always do so. We also believe passionately that nhs should always be run as a Public Service, not for private profit. In england we oppose it in principle. We also oppose the risk in the longterm to scotlands budget. That is why snp in the house of commons will take the opportunity to vote against any extension to privatization in england. It is one of the reason we see to build progressive alliances. The best thing we can do is to end austerity. You hear the other parties talk about increasing funding. If they tried to do that with within the framework of overall spending cuts, they will have to cut even deeper elsewhere. Anyone who tells you cutting the social care or welfare budget is good for the nhs is wrong. Lets lift austerity and invest in the nhs but without making deeper cuts. Bennett the nhs was not a huge issue in the 2010 election, but its a huge issue now. In 2010 we were well aware of the huge costs of the private Financial Initiative and how there was already creeping privatization in the nhs. What we have seen since then keeping with the help and social with the health and social care act has been a race toward setting up structures of privatization. What we say in the green party is profit motive should have no place in health care. We are not happy with 5 of money that is supposed to be for Health Care Going in profit. We want naught percent going in profit. To make nhs more efficient to deal with problems what we need to do is taking the whole market mechanism out of nhs. The whole purchaser, provider split. The select Health Committee in 2010 said it was costing 10 billion pounds per year. We need to put more money in. We need to look at the structures and say no private profit. Clegg we have heard warm words about the nhs. The nhs does not need warm words, it needs hard cash. I will give you the precise number. It needs 8 billion pounds by the end of the next parliament. That is a man who runs nhs england, independent of politics, has said it needs. The liberal democrats have a plan. Unlike the conservatives, we would ask the richest to pay a little extra in tax for the nhs. Unlike labour, they would be able to put money in nhs because we will get the job done of balancing the books, and then we can invest in the nhs. That is the way to balance the books and invest in nhs. It means 8 billion pounds more here and 800 million more in scotland and 450 million more pounds in wales. My challenge is if you love the nhs so much, put the money where your heart is. Wood this is probably one of the most important contributions of our modern age. Based on a scheme founded by people contributing together to fund the health they need ed collectively. The nhs is precious and must be defended against privatization. The nhs in wales faces two threats, one from continued austerity and cuts, but two, from centralization. We want to recruit and attract an additional 1000 doctors to bring us to the same level as the rest of the u. K. At the moment we are way behind. We have fewer doctors per capita than the vast majority of countries in the eu. The nhs needs to be funded through general taxation. Miliband like so many people around the country, i am deeply concerned about what i see happening in our National Health service. We see people waiting longer for test results, longer to see a gp , longer to have an operation. Weve got to turn it around. I think at home you should ask where specifically is the money coming from . We will have a mansion tax on the most expensive homes, above 2 Million Pounds. That is a clear promise from us. We will get money from the hedge funds engaging in tax avoidance. We will get money from the Tobacco Companies for 2. 5 Million Pounds. That will hire 20,000 more nurses, 8000 more doctors, 5000 more Health Care Workers and 3000 more midwives. It is joining up services from home to hospital, taking on the biggest challenge our nhs faces, which is an aging population because if people cannot get into see their gp, they end up in a e. A plan to turn the nhs around. Cameron thank you for your Incredible Service to the nhs. You are absolutely right, this is the most Important National institution of Public Service we have. I will never forget as the dad of a disabled child what i get every night when i took him to hospital worrying about his health, i got unbelievable care. I want that for everyone in our country. Weve been talking about the difficult decisions we have had to make to turn the economy around. A difficult decision was to go on funding the nhs. Putting more money in every year. That meant that we have trained 7000 more nurses. 9000 more doctors. And weve also managed to take out 20,000 bureaucrats because i want the money spent on patient care. It is key we keep a Strong Economy in order to fund a strong nhs. I want to the nhs being moved to a much more sevenday operation. Like your gp being open 8 00 in the morning to 8 00 in the evening all the way through the week. There is only one group of politicians anywhere in the United Kingdom who cut the nhs in the past five years, and that was the labour party in wales. When you hear ed milibands promises think about that. , host thanks you. Turning to nigel to open debate. Nigel i just wonder what everyone thinks about health tourism. Leanne made the point it was christened the National Health service. As we now have a lot of people coming into britain and using the nhs, who are not british residents, that is estimated to cost 2 Million Pounds per year. I wonder, would the panel agree with me that it needs to be the National Health service, and wouldnt it be a sensible thing, if like any other sensible country in the world, we say the Foreign Workers you must have Health Insurance when you come here. Bennett absolutely not. The figures farage is often citing do not reflect the reality. The situation is people come here as immigrants to work or come here to seek asylum as refugees. We have had a really dangerous damaging debate about immigration where it has been fueled by the others. We need to look at the fact that nhs is hugely dependent on foreignborn workers. It could not operate without them. Host thank you, Natalie Bennett. How will your party secure the longterm funding of the nhs while keeping it a Public Service available to all . Miliband of course we have to look at those issues, but i really do not believe that is at the root of all the problems of the National Health service. David cameron said he protected the nhs. I asked you at home to decide whether this is what protection looks like. One Million People waited last year in a e for more than five hours. We are missing the targets for Cancer Treatment for the first time ever. To add to that, we had a tent erected in the hospital car park to treat people in the United Kingdom. I do not believe that is protecting the nhs. His Spending Plans for the next parliament are even more dangerous. Cameron lets just take the one example of cancer. What we are seeing with cancer is 460,000 more per year getting seen and getting examined for cancer than used to happen. Our survival rates used to be some of the worst in europe and in europe are now some of the best in europe. A strong nhs needs a Strong Economy. If we go back to labours plans for taxes and debt and spending and welfare, that will wreck the nhs. This point about the commitment is important. When i said will find the nhs we would fund the nhs more every year, the labour view is that is more responsible. The democrat view is not the right approach. Clegg terry asked how we would safeguard the nhs for future generations, in view of an aging population. The nhs is under pressure as never before. It was a simple question, who has the plan to put 8 billion pounds of additional money into the nhs . That is what we have all have been told is required. You will not get it in scotland. They actually reduce money compared to what weve done south of the border. You will only get it if you ask the wealthy to pay a small additional contribution. Mental health has for far too long been held below physical health in the nhs. The more we can do for that would put the nhs in good shape for the future. Nicola the nhs budget has increased in scotland by 3 Million Pounds. It will go up by 400 Million Pounds next year. One thing we have learned is there is not anything nigel what nigel farage will not blame on foreigners. Many are things we should celebrate. Many people are living longer. New treatments, new technology. First we have to reform. As of yesterday in scotland, health and social Care Services are integrated. Yes, we have to invest. I think it is right to accept the stevens report, but this is an england only figure. 9. 5 billion pounds and if you follow the plan i am putting forward of modest, fiscally responsible spending increases we can invest more in the Health Service and do that without cutting welfare. Wood health has been used as a political football by labour and the conservatives in order to score points off of each other ahead of the general election. The people that suffer most when that happens are the patients and the staff in the welsh nhs. There are problems in health in england and wales. My view is those problems are exacerbated by cuts to social services. They are also exacerbated by privatization. It was the labour party that began the process of privatization in Health Service. They introduced pfi schemes and Foundation Hospitals as well. My view is the private sector has no role in the public Health Service. Miliband my two sons were born in a pfi hospital. It was an old, falling down hospital. You are right, there need to be limits to privatization. These cuts under David Cameron are about to go much further. He said he has protected the nhs and said he kept his word. You made a whole series of promises in the last election to people. No topdown reorganization. You said no going back to the days when you wait hours on end. That is exactly what happened. I do not think they will take seriously your promises on nhs because you broke the last promises. Cameron we took 20,000 bureaucrats out of the nhs and put 9000 doctors and 7000 nurses in. He opposes those reforms. Presumably he would like to rehire the bureaucrats. I want doctors not bureaucrats. Let me answer terry directly about things we can really do to make a difference with nhs. Dementia is a silent crisis in our country. We are raising the diagnosis rate. We need to keep going with that. The point about seven day operation is really important. Just a few miles down the road from where we are tonight is a hospital that carries out operations saturday and sunday as much as they do monday through friday. As a result, they have a fantastic service. We can improve nhs if we go after things like dementia and Public Health that put so much pressure on to nhs. Bennett since you are talking numbers, lets look at the 6 billion pounds that last year went to private health firms. In the end, the privatization is leeann is absolutely right the privatization is causing huge damage. What we are doing his racing toward the American Health care system, a system that uses twice the percentage of gdp that we use on health care for worse outcomes. The point i really want to pick up is the need to think about the nature of our society. We are going to take pressure off the nhs, we need a healthier society. Deal with air pollution, encourage bicycling and walking. Take the stress off people. Clegg it is simply not true that there has been a push toward privitazation. It is not the case. Sturgeon you legislated to allow 49 of hospital beds to the private sector. Host thank you. Clegg we legislated to outlaw the sweetheart deals entered into by the Labour Government. When we took over five years ago, the total amount of nhs money to the private sector was 4 . It is now 6 . I do not call that a great sweeping act of privatization. But it needs the money, 8 billion, and we need to bring social care and health care together, because we have too many elderly folk in hospital beds who should be discharged from hospital but do not have a place to go. Farage my challenge here was of course ignored for chiefly politically correct reasons. Yes, you have to put money in. I mentioned the health tourism. I am sure people will be mortified i dare to talk about it. 7000 diagnoses in this country every year for people who are hiv positive. Which is not a good place or any of them to be, i know. 60 of them are not british nationals. You can come to britain from anywhere in the world and get diagnosed for hiv and get the retroviral drugs that cost up to 25,000 pounds per year per patient. I know there are some horrible things happening in many parts of the world, but what we need to do is put National Health service therefore british people Health Service there for british people and families who have many cases paid into the system for decades. Wood this kind of scaremongering rhetoric is dangerous. Pharos coat farage its a fact. Wood it creates stigma to people who are ill. I think you should be ashamed of yourself. [applause] farage im sorry, weve got to put our own people first. The question is, how do we fund the nhs . If up to 2 billion pounds per year is being lost on health tourism, surely that is a very real problem. Sturgeon when someone is diagnosed with the dreadful illness, my instinct is to treat them as a human being, not consider what country they come from. Ed miliband said there should be limits on the privatization of the health care system. I take a different view on that there should be no privatization of the Health Service. It is far too precious to give it up for private profit. Nick clegg, you legislated to allow 49 of hospital beds to be used for the private sector. My message to people in england , wales, and Northern Ireland, the house of commons after the election and you want to roll back the tide of privatization, we will be your ally in doing that. Clegg five years ago we inherited a situation where the previous labor government had wasted 250 Million Pounds on sweetheart deals with privatesector contractors which did not help a single nhs patient. We outlawed that use of public money for privatesector contracts, which are only based on price rather than quality. 4 under labor already devoted only 6 now it is simply not the case. Miliband you supported the health and social care act which is a recipe for privatization. There is a bigger issue for people at home. That is future plans for the nhs. I set out for the money is coming from. David cameron is planning to double the spending cuts next year. Think that that would mean not just for nhs but social care. If you cut social care dramatically, you undermine the nhs fundamentally because elderly people do not get help in their own home, and up in the hospital and the nhs is creaking at the seams. Imagine what it would be like with another five years of David Cameron. Cameron ed miliband is scaremongering. He said in an interview that he wanted to weaponize the nhs. For most of us, the nhs is a service for our families, not a political weapon. We are starting on the first of april a new fund, a better care fund, with 5. 3 billion pounds bringing health and social care together so we can unblock the hospital beds, make sure people get the health care they need in the community. There was Something Else we inherited in the nhs, which was a culture from labour of coverup. Just 60 miles from where we are is the new stafford hospital. We all remember what we uncovered with the public inquiry, that elderly people were being left uncared for. Some of them drinking out of water vases. The target culture had run rampant. We have changed that and have made sure there are more nurses on ward, more doctors in charge and standards of care are going up. Wood that situation makes it even worse because you have fewer social workers that are effective clegg i would suggest we need three things to safeguard the nhs. First, money, 8 billion pounds. My party has a plan to do so. Secondly, give Mental Health the same importance and emphasis in the nhs as traditionally given to physical health. Thirdly, make sure elderly patients are discharged from hospitals with a social care system that has a place for them to go. Host pick up on the point David Cameron made about coverup. Miliband i would say everyone at home, use your vote to fight for the future of the National Health service. It needs to be rescued from you, david. I have to say, over 13 years the Labour Government transformed from 18 month waiting to 18 week waiting. That is now going backwards under you. You have failed the british people, broken the trust. They believed you. It has gone backwards on your watch. They will not trust you again. Cameron there are more nurses and doctors and people being treated and that is because we have a Strong Economy. He talks about failure. Lets remember the failure of the last Labour Government that virtually bankrupted the country and left us with impossible decisions. The biggest decision was protect nhs to spend more every year. A decision that labour said at the time was irresponsible. Thats what they said we ignored , that. We went ahead and invested in nhs as part of a balanced plan for our country. Miliband people at home will have to decide. I think the nhs is the foundation for working families. That is why my plan says that only when working people succeed that britain succeeds. David cameron will tell you he wants to congratulate himself and pat himself on the back. You have to decide about your experiences and what you see in the nhs. Bennett David Cameron raised the issue of social care. This is important in its own right. 2 Million People aged over 65 who need social care. 800,000 are not getting any help at all. It is worth thinking for a second about what social care actually is. You may need help getting out of bed and bathing in the morning. You might need help eating, just living your life, and you are not getting the help you need. That is why the green party is calling for free social care for over 65. Cameron the point about the 5. 3 billion fund that will help fund the care natalie is talking about, but also, how important it is we have a seven day nhs with gp being open 8 00 in the morning until 8 00 in the evening 7 days a week because areas of the country were that is already happening, some in Greater Manchester, we are seeing a lot less pressure on hospitals. All of this has taken the extra resources we put into the nhs, because the longterm economic plan is working. Thank you very much indeed. We have come to the end of the debate of the nhs. Thank you very much indeed for all of that. We will take a short break now. When we come back, the issue will be immigration. Please do stay with us for that. [applause] [applause] welcome back. Seven parties are debating the big issues live here. Late in the campaign that will be the best there will be debates and Northern Ireland. Viewers elsewhere will also be up to see the debate. Time for our third question which comes from hide. Immigration is inevitable. If you are elected, how would you address the issue of immigration. Thank you for your question. I would change labors approach on immigration. I think peoples concerns are real and they need to be dealt with. I want to explain how we will deal with them. If i am elected as Prime Minister, we would have new rules that if you come to this country, you will not get benefits for first two years. Well stop intercutting of wages and conditions. Employers exploiting migrant wages. There have been to pay minimum wage. We have to deal with it. If im Prime Minister, i will. If you want a party that will cut britain off from the rest of the world, i will not do that. Thank you. Will not go along with the scapegoating of migrants. It was bankers who caused us an economic crisis. We should not allow the rhetoric that blames immigrants for all of our ills. There is a reason why there is a strong antiimmigration feeling where there is little immigration that is because those areas have not shared in the wealth that has been generated. There are gaps, and certain skills that we need, but the debate around immigration has stopped those gaps being filled. We talked about the welsh nhs. This immigration debate has not helped that problem. It has exacerbated it. Thank you. Nicola we do need strong and effective controls on immigration. We need to make sure that people dont get away with abusing the system. We need to recognize that i take the view that the answer is investing and Public Services and enforcing a decent minimum wage. Not in scapegoating immigrants. I think the views of the Westminster Party have been driven by fear, rather than rational debate. We need to have a balanced debate. Here are some facts you immigrants are eu immigrants are net contributors to u. K. Public financing. The majority of migrants work. Those who dont work our students. Hundreds of thousands of british citizens how would we feel if they were treated in the way that migrants are here. Lets have a debate. Lets make sure it is a decent and civilized debate. Thank you. David cameron. Prime minister cameron what we need in our country is to recognize that people who come here work hard and contribute to our communities. They help make this a great country. We do need immigration that is controlled and fair. In recent decades, it has been too high. I want to see it come down. We want to reduce immigration from outside the eu. Inside the eu, because we created more jobs than the rest of the European Union put together. Immigration has been high. We need to bring under control. Here are the proposals i will put in place. First, if youre coming from the European Union, you wont get unemployment benefits. If you have been here for six months and dont have a job, you have to go home. Third, if you come here, you have to work for four years paying into the system before you get something out of the system. If you leave your family at home, you wont be able to send child benefit back to your family at home. Those are fair changes that i can deliver. Thank you. Nigel i told you that they were all the same. They all agreed. As members of the eu, what can we do to control immigration. Nothing. Nothing. The Prime Minister talks about benefits. Ed miliband can tell about benefits. This is not about mid benefits, it is about numbers. We have a total opendoor to former communist countries and the eurozone, where people are suffering badly. I dont blame a single margaret migrant who comes to britain wanting to better their lives. It has led to such a crisis in housing. We have to build a new house one , house every seven minutes just to cope with current levels of immigration. We need to change our relationship with europe to one of trade and friendship. We need to take back control of our borders and put into place an australian style system. 77 of british people want something done. Thank you. Nick i will never spread fear about immigration because i think there is bad and good immigration. In a bad immigration, that needs to be stopped. That is why i have introduced new checks at the borders to bear down on immigration increased the penalties on employers who exploit people from elsewhere. They have to learn english if they want to seek benefits. There is also good immigration. We should remain a decent, generous hearted open hearted , nation who welcome people who play by the rules, pay taxes help in the nhs. If we turn everyone away, the nhs will collapse overnight. I guess my approach to immigration could be summarize simply as visit i want britain to be opened for business but not open to abuse. Thank you. Natalie in terms of european immigration, we celebrate the Free Movement of people in the eu. As nickless alluded to, nickless alluded to nic holas alluded to, many britons have been able to take advantage of that. That is a real plus. If we think about noneu immigration, what we need is a controlled but fair and humane system. That is not what we have now. Take one example. The fact that a quarter of appeals, are often victims of torture in their own country. These people eventually say, yes you are a refugee after all. When people talk to me about immigration, they say they are concerned about three things low wages, crowded schools and hospitals, and housing problems. All of those are important Critical Issues we need to deal with, but theyre not caused by immigration. They are caused by failures of government policy. Thank you. I will turn to David Cameron now. Lets pick up on Natalie Bennetts point that immigration should be celebrated. Prime minister cameron we do have benefits from immigration as i said in my Opening Statements. But i think the choice boils down to this nigel is saying there is nothing you can do inside the European Union so give up and leave. Ed seems to say he does not want to renegotiate anything. So just give up altogether. I say get stuck in renegotiate, get the changes we need, and put those in a referendum to the british people by the end of 2017. I have sat around that table in europe and negotiated for britain. You can get things done. I have set out with i want to get done so we can sort out this immigration issue once and for all. Mrs. Merkel, who is the real boss in europe, has made it perfectly clear we can negotiate a lot of things but you cannot renegotiate the Free Movement of people within the European Union. That is backed up by the Commission President and the president of the european council. And the overwhelming majority of the parliament. Do you accept or not that in your renegotiation, Free Movement is not up for discussion . Prime minister cameron i dont accept that you give up before you have begun. People said it was impossible, we cut the european budget. I said lets get out of these bailout funds where british taxpayer money was being put in the countries like greece. People said you will never do that. We got out of the greek bailout funds. Instead of giving up, lets negotiate. The problem with nigel is, you are a backdoor to a labor government which would give us opendoor immigration. It is not what this country needs. Ed miliband im wondering what world you live in. [laughter] you talk about your negotiating skill in europe. You made a big stand against the president of the european commission. You lost 262 because you have no allies. David cameron has marginalized us in europe. I want to be honest with people at home. He failed on promises and he will make promises again. There are 4 solutions from nigel. I dont think our places out of the European Union. I think that would be a disaster for jobs, for families and businesses. Lets change europe so that it works better for us, including immigration. Lets not sacrifice jobs businesses, and families. Mr. Clegg as far as immigration and the eu, i would say, it should not be freedom to move should not ever be the same as the freedom to claim. The freedom to claim benefits on the first day you arrive. We need that is something we to split those two off. It is a two way street. There are almost as many britons living elsewhere then there are europeans working here. If you want to make sure our own youngsters get the jobs that other people from europe get, we have to train them. One of the things i am most proud of over the last five years is we have 2 Million People starting apprenticeships. That is the biggest increase since the last war. Over half of those are women. Train up our own youngsters so they get the jobs they apply for at home. Prime minister cameron there are three sides to this coin. You have to have an Education System that turns out young people that can do the jobs are economy is creating. You have to have a welfare system the make sure that work always pays. It is not simply about what happens in europe. If i think what we inherited we inherited bogus colleges and they issued our visas like a visa factories. People who could claim benefits on arrival. We have stopped that. We have people appealing against decisions made here. We now said you have to go home and appeal from home. There are changes you can make. Ms. Wood diversity is one of our great strengths, and i can see that in this audience. Decisions on immigration should be driven by what is good for the economy. The problem we have is that it is leading to some long wrong decisions. Take one specific example. When david came to office, he abolished the workstudy visa. That is hunting our universities. That is making it more difficult for them to attract international students. It means we deprive ourselves of the Economic Contribution of young foreign students that we have helped to educate here. It makes no sense. Last point i would make to david that is if changes need to be made in the European Union, than the best thing to do is to build alliances to make those changes, not act like a petulant schoolchild threatening to leave if you dont get your way. It is better to try to Work Together for that change. Ms. Sturgeon all of this is all about pulling out of the eu. I recognize there are many problems with the eu, but we benefit from being a member. I would say if there is a referendum on the future of britain in the eu, then the vote should be taken separately in each of the four countries so that if we are to pull out, it only happens when all four countries agree so you dont just have the biggest nation pulling everyone else out. Ms. Bennett i would partly agree with nicola that we need to talk about the nature of the debate. I disagree that this is about economics. It is a debate about human lives. If we look at one particular aspect of our immigration policy now you have a noneu partner, you have to be earning more than 18,600 pounds a year. Your spouse or partners salary cannot be counted. A judge describe this as unfair and unreasonable. 19,000 britons cannot live in their own country because of that rule. And a challenge to David Cameron. Syrian refugees the u. N. Has asked us clearly to take our share of the most vulnerable syrian refugees. You said we are not doing that were taking our own program. Last figure i saw is that we have taken 143 syrian refugees. I say, we should be taking our fair share of those most vulnerable syrian refugees. Chris debate about human lives. Debate about human lives. Nigel we should take some refugees from syria. I understand that. We forgotten the question here. What can we do to control immigration . I said it before nothing. , nobody else here would actually admit that. Can we get some sense of history on this . If you go back to the 1990s, from 19901998, net migration was about 40,000 a year. In the 1980s, lower. In the 1950s, slightly higher. The point is this since world war ii, we have operated at about 30,000 a year. It is now net 300,000 people a year. It is 10 times anything this country has had to live with since 1945. What it has meant is that for ordinary folk on minimum wage or not very high salaries, there their wages have been compressed. The ordinary people of britain who have paid a high price for the corporate employers mr. Clegg the answer is we are raising the minimum wage. He said lets remember history. I am married to a foreigner lets be openhearted. Should we control it . That is the question. [applause] nick should we control it . Stop that immigration but dont paint everyone with the same brush. How do you control immigration as an eu member . Be honest people. We cannot. Tell them the truth. Mr. Clegg the freedom to move around should not be the same as the freedom to claim. Nick it is irrelevant. It is about the mood in movement of people. You seem to imply anyone who is foreign who comes to this country is a menace. We must remain spirited. You wont admit the truth. There is nothing we can do. Mr. Milliband David Cameron said earlier that work pays in our country. Rubbish. Work doesnt pay in our country. There are so many people millions of people they cannot feed their family, make ends meet at the and of the month. If work is insecure, doesnt pay properly, you dont get the security that working people need. I say we should deal with those. It is a crucial part of this immigration debate. You have to create security for the working families of britain and that is what i will do. Prime minister cameron we have created 2 million jobs. When he was in the cabinet, half a Million People lost their jobs. Nigel, you want to leave the eu. Its a very clear position. The only way that can happen is by having a referendum. I say stay and fight, get a better deal but hold the referendum. The irony is that if people vote for him, they end up with miliband and get no referendum. Host thank you, David Cameron. [indiscernible] host thank you, David Cameron. Lets hear the point on syria. Thank you. Prime minister cameron the most important thing we can do in syria is maintain the fact that we are the secondlargest bilateral aid donor helping helping people in refugee camps to be house, fed, and clothed. And tried to find a solution so they can go home. There are 6 Million People that are in danger of being refugees. We cannot take all of those people. It make sense to use our aid budget to help them in the region. Host thank you. On that issue leaving europe to control immigration. Ms. Sturgeon David Cameron is taking us dangerously close to the exit door. I would like to issue a challenge tonight. They have spent a lot of time in scotland talking about the u. K. Family of nations. Will they give a commitment if there is a referendum, no one part of that family of nations will be taken out of europe against its will . Will they give a commitment that the votes will be counted in each of the four nations . Mr. Milliband my priority is not to have a referendum. Let me explain why. My priority is to tackle the cost of living crisis and build a future for our young people. The british people have a decision to make tonight. David cameron will spend the next two years deciding to exit the European Union, one he does not want to do so. He said he wants to stay in the European Union. I say, there is better priorities for our country. Mr. Nigel in 2012, David Cameron was opposed to britain having an eu referendum, saying it was not international interest. The people out there that want a referendum, the only way to get it is to get new mps into westminster. Mr. Clegg nigel seems to think every problem can be sold on a referendum to europe. Europe is not perfect. Of course, it is not perfect. But it is the Worlds Largest marketplace. 500 million shoppers who buy our goods and services. If you do want to nigel, which is to yank ourselves out of the family that makes up the European Union, unemployment will go up and i would never endorse an approach which would make our country poor and make people go out of work. I think it is deeply irresponsible. Natalie what i endorse is supporting the people. You have to be in your late 50s to have had a chance to vote on europe. The green party does support a referendum on your, but we would be campaigning strongly to stay in europe. We believe that europe there are certain decisions that should be made at that level like protecting our environmental standards, workers rights, those kinds of decisions. But also, what we needed to do we have a year less centralized and Multinational Companies and better for local decisions. Ms. Wood i think that the rhetoric on immigration has not helped the economic situation. There are gaps in the welsh economy that need filling. This debate does not help. The one thing i would agree with nigel on, and i never thought i would say that [applause] [laughter] leanne you are right when you say you cannot control immigration from inside the eu as a member. You have to accept that people will come here. We have Free Movement of people. And people will move out to other parts of the you as well. We expect our citizens to be treated well when they moved to other countries and likewise, we must treat european citizens well when they come live with us in our communities. Nigel an admission of the truth. These actually work rather well. When we were in with countries like france, germany netherlands, roughly similar Living Standards, education, health systems, it did not pose any problems. The problem was irresponsibly, we let in 10 former communist countries where the minimum wage is about 1 10 of what it is here. If you say to people in poor countries they can move to rich countries, they do. The Labour Government got it her registry wrong on the figures. We now face the potential of a collapse in the eurozone and we have no control. Mr. Milliband i do think there is a wider issue by the opportunity for our young people. Nick and and david were talking about apprenticeships. We bring a lot of people into this country contributing to our country from other countries in skills and i. T. But apprenticeships in i. T. Are falling in our country. The answer is if you want to , bring in a skilled worker from outside the European Union, you must provide apprenticeships or the next generation. Homegrown opportunity is an essential part of immigration. Nick you learn the tricks of the trade while you are working on the floor. It a great old idea which is given new life. It has never been expanded on such a scale. It is something that all future parliaments will continue with because it is a fantastic way to allow young people to get their first jobs. Host thank you. Thank you all Party Leaders on that issue. You still have time to register to vote on may 7. You can do so online. Our next question is from rebecca. I am a 25yearold graduate with a good job but my generation as a whole has it pretty tough. It cost more than our parents to go to university and high rent makes saving for our own home difficult, if not impossible. We will be less well off than our parents and it feels we are paying for other peoples mistakes. If youre elected, what will you do for my generation to help us feel optimistic about our future . Host thank you very much. Ms. Wood i believe we need to invest in our young people particularly in education. That is the best route out of poverty. You are right when you say young people today are going to fare worse than the older generation. It is the first time for long while that the generation of today is going to be worse off than the generation he for it. Before it. We want to provide free tuition fees for students, but because of our strategy, we are not in a position to do that, even if we were running the welsh government. We want to keep the tuition fees subsidies that is available to welsh students, but we would like students to study so that we can invest of public money into welsh universities. We would like some courses to be made available for free. I have talked about the need for doctors in the Health Service in wales, and we believe we can attract more doctors by providing free tuition for those particular Skilled Group of workers. Mr. Milliband you speak for so many young people i meet who are asking why they are paying the price of hard times. That is what we have got to turn around. That is what i am going to do if i am your Prime Minister. We have to guarantee all young people access to a good education. You get a highquality apprenticeship. It will cut the tuition fees from 9000 pounds to 6000 pounds. I dont want our young people drowning in debt when they leave university. We have to create good jobs for young people. That is why we will ban the exploitation of a zero hours contract. If you do regular hours, you get a greater contract. We will build 200,000 homes by 2020 and get a fair deal for young people in the private sector. I believe in the promise of britain, the next generation does better than the last. I believe we can restore it. Prime minister cameron thank you for your question. I think it is crucial. The most important thing is to make sure there are good jobs for people to do. In the last parliament, we had created 2 million new jobs. In the next parliament, we want to create 2 million more. I think apprenticeships and universities are vital. I want our young people to have the choice of either. We will have three million apprenticeships in the next parliament. We have uncapped university places, so who ever wants a place can go to university. In terms of building homes, i want to build homes people can afford to buy. That is what our starter homes are all about. Not available to foreign buyers or Investment Funds but there for british people to buy and own. It has helped 88,000 people. We can make that a reality for people. It seems odd to answer a question from a young person about pensions. But it is important to dignity and security in old age. We have safeguarded the pension. People should look forward to dignity and security at the end of a hardworking life. Thank you. Natalie we believe education is a public good and should be paid for general taxation. Just look at the facts. Students on average are leaving a university with 44,000 pounds of debt. Many will never pay it off and they are going through their life with many people from their mid20s to 50s. Anytime you want any money, you have to pay significant chunk of your income to a debt you were never replay. It is not like the system is working. We and the Green Party Want to work with to wish and fees to wish and fees tuition fees. And when he changes in housing. We are, for a minimum wage by 2020. Nick i couldve put into practice my party policy. It was introduced by labor and jacked up by labor. We did the next best thing that got the second fair deal. A lot of people are going to universities that ever before. But if i couldnt do that i hope some fair minded folk will acknowledge other things i am proud ive managed to do to give more opportunity to create a stronger economy. I even tell you more apprenticeships than ever before with huge tax cuts. It means you pay nothing on the first 10,600 pounds you earn. A money going to schools for disadvantaged kids. And healthy meals and lunchtime and these are the things with make a fairer future for future generations. I am proud of them. Nicola we are investing in more affordable homes. But we kept access to university fees. I grew up in a workingclass family. I have no right to take that away from the next generation of young people. So to do whatever it takes to keep access to university fees. It is shameful for any politician was benefited to take it away. Mps by the Scottish Parliament anywhere, always support the principle your access to education as a young person should be on your ability and never on your ability to pay. [applause] nigel there is a section of the young people who are having a terrific time. They are the rich. They are the ones who go to the 7 of schools where their parents were wealthy enough to pay further their education and they are dominating all it takes , art, in a way i have not seen before and their families get richer and richer and the gap, the social inequality grows. By abolishing grammar schools selective education, what we did was put up a ladder on tens of thousands of young men and women every year who would have done better had they gone into a grammar school. We encourage lots of people to go to university who actually were not academic, to have come out in a debt, and you would have done better with trade and skills. On housing, we have a new house built every seven minutes to cope with migration. Lets cut the numbers and have a revolution. Host i will turn to David Cameron. Prime minister cameron let me make a point about schools. Under this government, we have a million or more children in good or outstanding schools. We opened up the Education System and encourage education providers teachers and charities to set up schools. I was at one today, the warrington kings academy. I think these free schools are a good institution. Ed milibands party says no more and is completing shutting down the schools that are already getting going. I say we need more good School Places whether they are free free schools are academys thats what we need. Ed why is the conservative Party Planning to cut money from schools . You are planning to cut 3 billion pounds. [indiscernible] Prime Minister cameron we sat in the room together him a difficult decision. I cannot defend all of them. You are picking. When your party wanted to cut spending at the beginning of last parliament and i said, no. You do not cut the money that goes to nurseries and colleges and schools. And they are both right. The thing i would say to David Cameron is preschools it is wrong. We do not want a system in the future with unqualified teachers. But theres a bigger issue. Rebecca was asking about young people. You heard David Cameron and nick clegg defend a system which ensures that young people in universities, with 44,000 pounds worth of debt. He did not have to leave with 44,000 pounds worth of debt nor did i. But the difference is that i will do something about it. And nick, you are describing as a broken promise as the next best thing. It was a broken promise, you betrayed the young people of our country. Mr. Clegg i get this pious from ed miliband, this is the man who said there is no boom and bust and crashed our economy. I have apologized and took responsibility for the mistake i made. Ed miliband, why dont you apologize for crushing become . Say im sorry for crushing the british economy. [applause] mr. Miliband the banks were underregulated. Let me just put this out david, when you are as leader of the opposition, you are think you were saying the banks were overregulated. We will not elections from you about the Global Financial crisis. [applause] host gentleman. David Cameron Young people suffering the most with outofcontrol welfare and spending. The deficit and debt is on of them. Host ed miliband, thank you. Natalie bennett. Ms. Bennett i think we were talking about education, so perhaps we can go back there. Particularly the point David Cameron raised about free schools. We have a system with the academies of the former government that were based on competition, that schools compete with each other and fight against each other. The green party does not believe that should be foundation of schooling. We want to bring free school and academies back under local Authority Control and cooperative. We need a system that is not focused on exams, an exam factory that shows children into exam after exam. Children needed education for life, a broader education that includes things like first aid cooking, sex and relationship education, personal finance education. We need a much broader education that prepares our young people. Natalie in wales there will be more cuts to education. There will be difficult continuing the grant past 2017. If labour wins, they will cut the grant by 2. 2 according to the iff, that is one billion pounds over the course of the next term. The tories will more than double that. Affording school and job creation will be difficult under those circumstances. That is why we must end austerity. We too can afford free tuition fees for students in wales. Ms. Sturgeon i think we have seen why we need to break the Old Boys Network in westminster. None of these guys can be trusted. If you listen to ed miliband, or in 1997 tony blair promised no tuition fees and then raised them. In 2005, after the election pop up fees were introduced. If you want ed, if he does get to be Prime Minister to keep his promise on tuition fees and other progressive policies that he is now promising, i would hope there are pms in the house of commons keeping him honest. Host there are a lot of issues into this question. It was not just about education, it was about housing too. It was possibly about the Younger Generation paying for other people. Mr. Clegg on the housing point, rebecca and others are worried about not getting your feet on the first rung of the property ladder. The liberal democrats, we have an idea and it is this. Lots of young people cannot afford a mortgage on a property. We would introduce a rent to own scheme or you will not need a deposit to buy a house, but every time you paid your rent at market rate, you build up a share of ownership in your home. By renting, you become over time an owner in your home. I think that would be a great way to introduce in the next parliament to give people like rebecca that tangible belief that they can hope to live in a home which they can call their own. Mr. Farage i think markets are about demand and supply. If you have to build a house every seven minutes to cope with people coming into britain, you have a problem. An independent government can deal with that. But we need to build lots of houses. The problem is the Developers Want to build on greenfield sites. It is cheaper for them, it is better for them. And indeed, changes in the planning laws mean it is much easier for them to build on those sites. I think what government needs to do i dont always want government to intervene, but i do think your government should supply grants and make decontamination of brownsville sites so the could be big for developers. We could build 200,000 houses on the sites and solve a big part of the problem. Ms. Wood we are taking a range of steps in it shared equity not only to help young people, but those taking their first steps to own a house. It would also protect Affordable Housing as well, and invest in greater numbers of affordable homes. There are some people, even with the help of shared equity, who will not be able in the short or medium term to buy their own home. We have a duty and an obligation to make sure we are providing good, quality housing to them. That is really important. Mr. Miliband i want to talk about some thing important to young people, which is renting in the private sector. It is often incredibly insecure, sometimes substandard accommodation. We are the only party with a plan to get a fair deal in the private renter sector. 3 year tenancy. Rent stabilized during that time. At the moment, they charge tenant and landlord fees. That is a massive issue for young people all across the country. We will act. We have have to stand up to some of these powerful interests and make the country work for young people. Host lets turn to the final element of rebeccas question. If you are elected, what will you do to help my generation feel optimistic about our future . Prime minister cameron we have had a difficult time recovering from the appalling recession that we have had. It has been tough. It has been difficult. Britain has still got some great strength. We are creating jobs, we are part of Important Networks in the world. Whether the g8 tornado. The g8 tornado. The g8 or nato. We have clout in the world. We have nurses in west africa helping to deal with ebola. We have some of the most brave and professional Armed Services in the world. And tonight it is a good night to say thank you for all that they do. There are people on the street that are in Armed Services. After the end of the day [indiscernible] Prime Minister cameron she makes a good point that there are people that come out of our Armed Services who do not difficulties. To help Homeless People and people with Mental Health problems. Host let us return to the issue about providing optimism for Younger Generations. Natalie bennett. Ms. Bennett i think i made in my opening marks, reference to climate change. That, of course is one of the Critical Issues we have to deal with to provide an optimistic future. Much broader than that, we have to stop trashing our planet. We think about in britain today, we are using the resources of three plants will only have one. Planets when we only have one. The fact is in the last 40 years in my lifetime, the world has lost 50 of its vertebrate wildlife. Half of the wild animals are gone. Stop fracking event. Mr. Farage our leaders arent optimistic. Our leaders dont think this country is good enough even to make its own laws. What i want to see is a selfgoverning United Kingdom. A country which has pride, and the young People Living in a global economy. We have to forget to this obsession with our failing nextdoor neighbors and reengage with a bigger, wider world. The best place to start will be the 2. 2 billion people that live in the commonwealth and who are our real friends. Lets have a britain a , government that looks out for the world. Ms. Wood the best place to provide optimism is the best conditions where everyone can have a job. Create the conditions for employment. We want to support Small Businesses to take on extra people. Change the way the Public Sector contracts to the private sector to guarantee more jobs to be local jobs. Mr. Clegg the only way we will increase optimism is if we wiped the slate clean. We have to release the debt and deficit. I do not want my own kids, i do not want any of my own children to pay the price for this generations mistakes. If i can leave rebecca or anyone with a figure in mind 46 billion pounds, that is what we as a country all spend next year just paying off the interest on our debts. Just imagine the hundreds of thousand of homes we could build for 46 billion pounds. 46 billion pounds is the same as 700 pounds for every man, woman, or child in this country. When i hear leaders implying that we shouldnt get rid of our deficit, i say, if you dont do that, it is like saying we will not pay off our credit card bill and get our kids to pay for us. None of us said that. Mr. Miliband i will be very practical about this. What is one of the most important thing for young people . The quality of jobs. 700,000 in our country on zerohour contracts. People waiting for a Text Messages to go into work tomorrow. David cameron says that he could not live on a zero hours contract, and neither can i. But im going to do something about it. It goes to what kind of country we build. Do we build a country for security . Ms. Sturgeon they brought it against an amendment to end zero hour contracts. Why should people believe what hes saying about zero hour contracts . Prime minister cameron there are about 70 labor employees that employee zero hour contracts. So they do not practice what they preach. [applause] some of Business Leaders from iconic business brands, big and small, saying that their plan is getting the country on the right track. If we go off that with ed milibands plan, we put the recovery at risk and jobs at risk. Young people have the most important thing of all [indiscernible] mr. Miliband there is a big choice in the elections. He thinks there are big corporations do well then the wealth will trickle down to everyone else. We have tried the experiment over the last five years, and it has failed. Host thank you very much indeed for your comment on that. That very comprehensive question from rebecca. Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of our freeflowing debate. There is been a lot to discuss your in the last two hours. A lot for us all to reflect upon. Before we conclude tonight, i would invite each of the leaders to make a final and brief statement on why they think you should vote for their party on may the seventh. Ms. Wood you can vote for the same party and get the same cuts and priorities, or you can vote for some thing better and more progressive. I went into this election with a clear message none of us can afford more austerity. None of us can afford 30 billion pounds of cuts. None can afford the 100 billion pounds that the tories, labor, and liberals intended to spend on nuclear weapons. Their priorities are wrong, but they wont pay the price it will be ordinary people that pay the price. We offer an alternative, a clear alternative. A plan for investment. Yes, it is fiscally responsible, but it will also allow us to invest in infrastructure to protect our Public Services, to lift people out of poverty. To people in scotland, i say snp for a louder voice. Ours will be a voice to help bring about change. Mr. Clegg thank you for sitting through this 2hour political marathon. I have only one thing to ask of you, and it is this when you vote, decide what is right for you and your family. Make sure you do what is right for our country, but above all make sure that we do not lurch this way or that. Make sure we do not borrow too much or cut on the other. In other words, make sure that when you vote, we keep our Country Stable and strong and fair. And the only way we can do that is by finishing the job, finishing it fairly, balancing the books, doing it fairly, and putting money into our Public Services. That is the only way we can create a society that i imagine we all want a society where we have a stronger economy and a fairer society, where there is opportunity for everyone. Mr. Miliband you have heard from seven leaders tonight. Theres one fundamental choice in this election do we have a britain where we put working people first or do we carry on with a government that is not on your side . If im Prime Minister, i will make sure that hard work rewards everyone in their country, not those who just get sixfigure bonuses. I will take on those Energy Companies ripping you off. And if im Prime Minister, we will balance the books and protect education. There is a big choice in this election. I believe it is letting working people succeed to let britain succeed. If you believe that, i ask for your support. Lets bring the change that britain needs. Ms. Wood i hope the words you heard tonight do not fill you with too much despair. Despite what you heard, there is an alternative to the westminster consensus. Austerity is not inevitable, it is a choice. We can have a future where everyone has access to decent Public Services, where everyone can have a decent standard of living. But not if we keep doing things the way we always have been. For a stronger, more prosperous, greener wales, for a wales that counts, give your vote to the party of wales. For wales to be strong, like scotland, we must be strong. The more strength you give us, the greater influence we will have. Let this be the success we know we can be. Thank you. Ms. Bennett if you want to change, you have to vote for it. I say, vote for what you believe in. You dont have to go on voting for the lesser of two evils. That is how we ended up with a tired, failed politics that we have now. If you want a fair economy, a public nhs, vote for change, vote green. Already in parliament, we are seeing Caroline Lucas make a huge impact. We need more mps like caroline. With strong group of green mps, we can deliver a new brand of politics. You can deliver a peaceful revolution. Where if you are in england, wales, scotland, or Northern Ireland, if you are thinking about voting green, do it. Your vote will count. Mr. Farage you see, i warned you at the beginning, i said they were all the same. [laughter] what you saw tonight is the politically correct, oh they are so keen to be popular on the international stage. They do not understand the thoughts and aspirations of all ordinary people in this country. They are detached. Most of them have never had a job in their lives. What we represent is patriotism. We think britain can be better than this. If you want things to be shaken up and change promptly, you have to put more ukip mps in westminster. We can outshine all expectations on may the seventh. Lets do it. Prime minister cameron i have been your Prime Minister for the last five years. All of that time, i had tried to have one task in mind, which is turning our economy around putting the country back to work and clean up the mess that is put to us. I want to stand for another five years. I want to finish the job that we all started. We have created 2 million jobs let us create a job for everyone who wants and needs one. Let us have britain back in the black. We have invested in our National Health service and lets keep doing that and make sure that it is a genuine, seven days a week service for your family all day all year round. What my plan is is basically one word security. Security for you, for your family, for your country. This is an amazing country, and we are on our way back. There is a fundamental choice in this election stick with a team that brought you that plan because it is working and is helping, or put it all at risk by the people they gave us the spending, debt, taxes and waste. I say stick to the planet that is working, lets not go back to square one. Let us finish what we started. Host my thanks to all of you