divide hurting most? there is a divide within generations. overi million pensioners in poverty, if you are 16 years old, minimum wage of £4 an hour, if you're older, maybe £7 an hour work, the question we fundamentally have to ask, who is the economy for, there is enough money to not have this generational divide at all. where do you see the divide hurting most? there is a divide, but i would say, a lot of the issues that are important to young people are important to old people as well. we advocate an approach that gives care to those people that have paid in over the years, as they look back on it, and as they look back on an adulthood that has been one of relative prosperity and giving hope at the same time to a generation that for the first time in many generations is without hope. we have heard just about enough from the politicians for now(!) let's get to the audience before time ticks away from us. you are going to tell us about your experience in foster care. from my experience in foster care, you can very clearly see the impact of austerity and cuts. social workers are absolutely overstretched with caseloads that are not manageable anymore, two of my social workers had to leave the profession, because the amount of stress that was brought on them by the nature of theirjobs. they are the forgotten kids. they are not really given a voice. there needs to be a lot more done to support them, especially with mental health. that is a massive issue. do you think younger people get enough help from the government, present government or previous governments, in terms of the money that you pay in taxes coming back to help? absolutely not, i would say that our generation have greater mental health issues, i think that is a massive issue that affects us, more so than the other generations. also massive stigma around it. the cuts to the nhs are resonating deeply, and they are breaking people, it is political policy that kills people. anyone got a different view on a different benefit they have received from the government? i was not sure about this personally, the main thing i would like to put forward as regards benefits and state and young people, first of all, i've got to speak faster, i'm sorry, first of all i would like to say i do not believe the young... i have been through the mill of mental health, i don't believe the young have it any worse... have it any worse than past generations. i have seen so much mental illness as a volunteer in care homes. i myself suffer from manic depression. i would like to make it quite clear that i don't feel that, whilst the young may feel hard done by, i don't think it should be a competition. but the danger is, let's talk to the liberal democrats, it turns into a competition, a lot of people feel that the elderly are over served, and if you look at the figures, the younger generation are getting less correspondingly? i think that is true, looking at the things the previous generations have had in terms of house prices, free education grants, the rest of it, and the older generation look at young people with baffled amazement. i don't think we can talk too much about liberal democrats and free education, frankly, right now. laughter. i think there are things that are very clear, dominic, that you have in the past very clearly said, we, the older generation, inclined to vote more. so let's make sure that the older generation is well served, and then you had an issue with your manifesto on the triple lock and suddenly it wasn't going to be quite so rosy for pensioners. and they are not very happy about it. and kirsty, there are no easy decisions here. on top of having a strong economy, which i mentioned before, which pays the revenue, we have talked about the wish list of things we want, but they have to be paid for, and on top of that, you have to take difficult decisions. one of the things we have had to do is take difficult decisions in relation to some of those benefits. equally, we have cut the government deficit, the difference between how much is brought in and how much it spends, by 100 billion, we opposed every inch of the way. spending on education, look at the statistics, spending on education is going to fall... kirsty, kirsty, we have taken the difficult decisions for two reasons, one, we don't think the 100 billion should be left in debt and taxes for all the young people here. and, two, so that we can invest more in education, we have 3 million more apprenticeships, 1.8 million more kids going to schools that are good or outstanding compare to 2010. who wants to come back at dominic? the tories often talk about good schools as if there is some to decide where there is good schools and bad schools, and it speaks to the policy they have on grammar schools. they are designing a two tier system in education that will see the kids in the poor backgrounds fall behind, and the kids in the more affluent backgrounds get better, that is iniquitous. that is why the liberal democrat people premium, which we brought in in coalition, has seen the attainment gap close, we want to sustain that. 0n the back row. my view is that there is definitely a generational divide in my experience, i went to university, not only did i not have to pay tuition fees, i was given a grant! so that i could live, i could pay my rent and go out and enjoy myself. i came down here with no debt, got ajob, one of five that was offered to me, quite easily! i then got a house, easily bought, for three times what i was earning. today, the same house would cost ten times what someone in the same position as me would be earning today. that is ten times against three times. we will come into housing. he is rubbing it in. applause. i came in under the £9,000 a year scheme, i get a maintenance loan and a grant, i'm one of the lucky ones, really. in terms of recent students coming in who aren't getting grants at all. in particular, nursing students. which is inherently unfair and leaving them in even more debt. when i think about the amount i'm going to accumulate, it is in the 40,000s. it's very difficult to manage sometimes. the problem is not necessarily with tuition fees, it's more of a housing issue as well. we will come to that. let me bring in the snp. the snp's position is that the triple lock will stay, and also, there will be no means tested fuel allowance, and in scotland you also do not have tuition fees, and the economy is not doing as well as in the other parts of the united kingdom, so a situation where there is not endless pots of money. why can you say, actually, a proportion of these people in here over 60 can afford to pay fuel allowance and do not need as much in their pension as an 8% increase, why not even it out? in the long term, these guys will not be able to pay for it. there certainly is not an endless pot of money and anyone who suggested that would be wrong but what you can have is different priorities. in scotland, the scottish government is investing in education from the point of preschool years, we have 16 hours free childcare for three and four—year—olds every week. plus the most vulnerable two—year—olds. we have free school meals. we are investing £120 million in a pupil equity fund to close the attainment gap, and of course, we have free education... free higher education which saves £27,000 a year... labour, you're going to help the under 30s when they have kids, by providing free childcare. if that is a policy for the younger generation it will cost the earth. jeremy corbyn this morning could not cost it. did not know how much it would cost. i do not think the most important quality in a prime minister is to memorise the balance sheet. it will cost £5 billion. that is an embarrassment for all generations. that is an investment for all generations. for young parents who know having good quality childcare enables them to go out to work and contribute to the economy. but grandparents acting as carers, they're taking it up. this liberates younger and older. and most importantly, and this is the difference between us and the conservatives, they see all public services as some kind of money sink. this enables our economy to be stronger and better because we have well—cared for children and parents who can contribute to the economy. that is why we are investing in it. you want to come in on that? i would like to say there is a whole group of women who are finding it difficult to take up those caring responsibilities now. a group of women born in the 19505, expecting to retire at 60. not getting their pension when they expected it. not being informed of the change in their age. they would love to be looking after their grandchildren, they're having to continue to work and because they are working, they may be contributing to paying taxes, but they are unable to make that wonderful contribution of looking after their grandchildren and helping with childcare. so clearly a divide within that issue itself between the generations. but what about the divide in the workplace? we've grown used to the idea that our children's lives will be easier than our own. but is that true for millennial matt and his friends? if we look at this graph, we can see that earnings have increased year on year since betty was a girl. until the financial crisis in 2008. everyone was hit hard. but the youngest were hit hardest. matt has experienced a 12% real pay fall whereas betty's went downjust 3.7%. this means that matt is earning £8,000 less in his 20s than his parents did. for the first time ever, he cannot expect to be better off than his mum and dad. partly this is because annual pay increases have gone down while the cost of living has gone up. in other words, he has less money coming in and more going out. the typical annual real pay increase for employees has fallen from a healthy 4% when betty was in her 20s to close to zero today for matt. perhaps this explains why a quarter of adults still needed help from the bank of mum and dad by the age of 35. let's now talk about inequalities at work and concerns people have aboutjobs and being worse off than the generation before. do you worry about being worse off than your parents or grandparents? i do in a way. i do feel worse off because i feel i think labour have caused us to be in dire straits with the economy because of the spending they did in their previous government. it has left us with a poorer future. who is worried about that here? lots of people worried about debt. what are your concerns about debt and not actually being able to save? i graduate this year, i will be £27,000 in debt. i'm going to move home, i have not got prospects of a job and i'm finding it difficult to get on the housing ladder. it is pretty bleak. it is worrying me and i do not think, i do not blame older people, but i'm jealous of the benefits they have had. that is interesting because this young woman is jealous of the benefits that you have all had in your lives. do you think you have had it better than the younger generations are having today? tell me why you think you do. we did not have tuition fees, we had grants. we could easily find a job. and we can get back there, i think with the labour party policies, and having growth and investment, we can get back to that. gentleman in the background? i also think it is quite an issue that the kinds ofjobs that young people are now being offered involve them in sort of arrangement like zero hours contracts, having to work well below their actual expectations after university. in order to actually even get a permanent long—term job. i feel that is quite unfair. what expectations do you have of your working career? the research says that actually you are much less likely to see your earnings increase because you're going to be too scared to movejobs. you're going to be worried about moving jobs, worried about job insecurity. i wonder does anyone actually have an isa, even a private pension for example, they are paying into? gentleman at the back has a private pension. anyone else like to talk about their concerns about the world of work? heather, i should come to you straightaway because you are about to be starting mental health nursing and you reckon £60,000 is what it is going to cost you. yes. i do not come from a well—off background. i have been saving for quite a few years to put towards my university fees. but when i graduate it will be towards the £60,000 mark. i'm going into mental health nursing so working for the nhs, that in itself scares me. given the direction it is going in right now. and i am worried i'm going to spend so much money on this education, will i even get a job at the end of it as a qualified nurse, will i even be able to provide for my future family? a theme emerging i think on this side of the room about low wages, low expectations in terms of the careers you can hope to go on to do. dominic from the conservatives, things are looking grim for this half of the room at the moment, there is no denying that. i think grim is wrong, i think we can be optimistic about the future. but it is difficult i think for this generation. we cut youth unemployment from the 20% we inherited to 12%. and we have left the average basic rate taxpayer, low and middle income earners, with £1000 more in their pockets. we have introduced the national minimum wage. i think a big issue is housing. we have seen 300,000 more affordable homes built. but we are ambitious to build even more. but there is no getting away from the basic fundamentals, you need a strong economy to deliver the jobs and investment. let me come in here, dominic keeps talking about a strong economy but you never ask the question who is the economy for. the fact is the conservatives have cut corporation tax, that is a tax on the profits of big corporations. since 2010. to the point where we could perhaps be getting 20 million, £20 billion a year, 8 billion of which could pay for heather's tuition fees, another 12 billion could go into actually providing those decentjobs and investing. it doesn't have to be this way. you have a whole bank of people over 60 wanting in here on this. 0n the question ofjobs, job security, pay and so forth. gentleman in the front. do you think that actually you have had it a lot better than this generation? no, i have been through the world of work now since i was 16. i have not been in a single job for more than three years. i have not got a pension, i have had to, towards the end of this i have been better paid so i bought a flat to rent out, to use as my pension. and thank you again to the conservatives for taking tax off me because they have changed the tax rules on renting. do you think this generation has got to harden up a bit and take it on the chin? there is part of that. but also i think they were sold down the river with the tuition fees for universities. because they were promised that those tuition fees would never be shown as being part of their loans and debt. as part of the older generation, would you have been prepared to pay more tax to make sure this generation had a free university education? i'm already doing that. yes. hands up how many would be prepared to pay a little more tax, the radio is listening in here, and it is a full house. i would like to say practically every person over 60 says they would be prepared to pay more tax, a hypothecated tax, to have young people going to college and university free. the gentleman with the purple shirt in the background. this is the difficulty, you're talking about strong economy but most of these people are not even going to be able to engage in that strong economy because they're not going to be able to earn a living wage, they're not going to be able, they will be weighed down by huge amount of debt. it isjust ridiculous. you're not even going to be to earn a living wage. gentleman here. i worked part—time along with my undergraduate degree, i'm now doing a masters degree so in total i will have about £60,000 worth of student debt. which is unbelievable. the tories will tell you you do not have to pay it back until you earn over 21 grand and that is fine. but the reality is there is no incentive for me to want to earn over 21 grand because i'm never going to pay more than the interest i am accumulating. so you are stuck? he is stuck? i do not know, it is a personal situation. but he is telling you. i understand. i did a masters and i had to pay towards my fees for my masters at that stage and i know it is difficult. but we also need the younger generation to think about the choices they are making and see whether it is worthwhile for them. do you think it is worth someone going to university to come out with £60,000 worth of debt, and not have the possibility of having a job in anything like that income bracket? i would say i want to go into academia and near enough all the phd stipends are eu funded. the government said it is going to replace the funding we will lose from leaving the eu but do i believe that? do i believe the 350 million for the nhs? this is probably a good time to go to independent expert torsten bell. is it worth these guys even bothering to go to university, forking out for those tuition fees, if they live in england, for the wages that they are going to earn in their various careers? everyone would prefer not to have tuition fees or fees for anything you are doing. there is a big difference between the world that a lot of people here have been talking about when they went to university because only five or 10% of the population went to university. 25 year olds now, a third of them will have gone to university. we do need to be careful because lots of the older generation did not go to university, they did not all get free grants. so yes the small numbers that did go to university got good jobs. if we look at the employment practices, the level of employment amongst those older generations, farfewer of them had unemployment than the young people today. man in the front row. starting out on a career, we had good support, we had reasonable wages, we had free education and we worked hard, every bit as hard as you guys are working, but we got rewards for it. and that is what is missing for this generation. and it is a tragedy. the labour party say they want to put up a living wage to £10 an hour by 2020. i think that is right. but there are worries that that will hit the lowest paid because employers simply will not be able to pay it. you cannotjust throw money at the issue of low wages. a low—wage, low skill economy is the reason why some people here do not think it is worthwhile going to university. we all benefit from a high skill, high wage economy. and raising the minimum wage to £10 an hour by 2020 which is what we have committed to do, that will give people a better incentive to work and also reduce the benefits that we pay out, the subsidy the state pays for people to stay in low—wage, low—income jobs and it will help transform our economy. we cannot make our way in the world as a low—wage, low—income economy. that is what dominic does not understand. we need high skills. £10 an hour, still not film star wages. is that a good living wage to hope for even in five years' time? the gentleman in the t—shirt in the front. going back to the university question, i have a degree, i now regret going for that degree. because i was told if i went into a place where jobs were needed in various parts of the country, which i did, and i came out of that degree and no jobs at all. you had to travel to go to free internships in certain places in manchester and london. i now regret that because every time i now go for a job i'm either overqualified or do not have experience. so it is a barrier, sometimes i take it off my cv. what do you say to that? i also want to come back to the mental health nurse to be and i thank you for going into that profession because mental health is very much the unsung profession within the health service. what would you do about public sector pay to make sure heather did not get 1%? the cap, lift the 1% cap because right now a new nurse like heather is going to be will be £530 a year worse off by the end of this decade as a result of that 1% year on year rise, based on a 2% inflation. you're just not getting the money to keep pace with inflation. gentleman in the background. instead of freezing wages as they do with the 1% cap, why not link it to what the mps get? they would think about it then. guaranteed applause for that line! i just wonder if there is anyone on this over 60s half of the room who is still working, let us not have the impression that all sitting pretty in retirement on huge wads of cash? quite a few of you. i have been made redundant several times throughout my working life. i'm running my own business at the moment but earning next to nothing. having said that i still pay tax and would gladly pay more to support these young people through their education. 0n the question ofjobs and helping, i wonder in the bank of over 60s, who has been, who has had to be the bank of mum and dad or the bank of granny and grandad? just one two, three. not many. my children were fortunate enough to get grants to go to university. but if not you would have had to help, or theyjust would not have gone to university? yes. i wonder if any of you actually regret, apart from this gentleman here, in the under 30s, regret your career path because actually you have come out worse than you thought you would be? holly in the front? i'm a teacher, ijust do not feel for what i do, the amount of work i put in, i do not feel i'm getting enough. and going back to the motivation, of the students and teaching, saying to them you will have to pay this much for university, there is going to be so much competition, and no job security. you're going to be working until you are at least 70. those young adults. it is just, it is really difficult for me to be motivating. i wonder if you don't necessarily resent but question the fact that triple lock on state pensions means that pensions have risen 8% since 2005, and if the triple lock continues, will continue to rise, so basically you have the chance that the minimum is going to be 2.5%, increase for pensioners, each year, how do you feel about that? this lot don't look too old! laughter. they don't look too old! how do you feel about that? i don't want any division. i want to be more cohesive, certain parties are trying to divide the young and old, i think that is difficult. we have concerns aboutjobs. now, to a pretty stark difference — housing. if we look at betty's generation, 65% of them own their own home. by comparison, millennial matt has struggled to get on the housing ladder. at the age of 30, only 40% of his generation owns a property. so was it easier to buy a house in the 1970s? in 1974 betty was 26 and was able to buy her first home for 2.5 times her annual income. fast forward to 2016, a 30—year—old matt is struggling to buy his first home. the property will cost on average more than four times his annual income. so matt and his friends are stuck renting from private landlords. in fact over his lifetime, matt will spend on average £44,000 more on rent than betty did. and to make matters worse, he is probably paying his rent to betty! half of all rent that goes to private landlords, around £4 billion a year, goes to those over 60. the effect of this is a two thirds of the aggregate wealth created since 2007 went to betty and her generation while wealth for matt and those aged 16 to 34 has fallen. let's start this section with a quick show of hands, this will be interesting, on the younger side of the room, how many people already own their own home? one man! sheepishly putting his hand up. the most debt, only his own home! and just out of interest, how many of you expect to own your own home before you are 30? one, two, three, four... just a few of you. there is a glimmer of hope there. let's go to dean, in the back row, you are saving hard to buy your own home, how much are you putting away a month? £700 a month, that is the maximum i can put away for a help to buy isa and i saved £2400 last year. how much were you saving each month? i have saved £2400 per year, that will do well towards a deposit. what about your social life? i live with mother and father, so...! interesting, help to buy scheme, labour is going to phase out the help to buy scheme by 2020 and yet it is the only lifeline that many young people have of the possibility they will get on the housing ladder, why phase out help to buy? what we have found is that help to buy has been going to people who have over £100,000, and it has not succeeded in changing the housing market. what we are hoping to do is to build investor build 1 million new homes over the next parliament. so no? so no help to buy? we will be building affordable homes that young people can afford. who likes help to buy? anybody else? you are doing it. how much has help to buy given new optimism that you might get on the housing ladder? it has given me a lot of optimism, i'm saving £200 a month as well, living with mum and dad helps as well, so it has given me optimism, especially with the extra money the government give you, it gives a boost to your savings and makes it easier to save. whose biggest bill is rent? probably pretty much all of you. in the second row...? the lady in the blue. i'm studying at college at the moment, just because i'm a student i am allowed to be a bit more flippant with my spending, but i don't have a job at the moment, that's practically impossible, i don't quite know what to do, really, it's impossible for me. stuck in a vicious circle. who has had terrible accommodation that they cannot believe they have had to pay for? we have had housing, student housing, for the last three years, one of the being in halls, private renting for the rest of it, we have gone through these, administration fees, hundreds of pounds each year paid just to go for the house, just to put the paperwork through, shoddy work done for repairs, the heating, i am sure most people remember the student house being cold and damp, and all the horror stories that you hear are true, basically. let me bring the greens in here, because you have, on the question of private renting, do you accept it is often really badly maintained, terrible rents, and you have a plan to change that? you have to get the heart of why there is a problem, the 2011 census showed we have more rooms per head of population than we have had in our history, this is not about generations competing, it is that housing has been turned into a speculative commodity, fuelled by buy to let landlords, trying to make money from young people and old people. if you take the subsidy away from the buy to let landlords, put it into social housing, allow councils to borrow against that, increase the supply, take the heat out of the housing market, have rent controlled as well, give local authorities the opportunity to cap rents and control them so we have a living rent. we can do it if we have the political will. this has been framed as young versus old. actually, it really is not like that, there is enough money, if we have the political will, does not need to be taken from the old to give to the young. we can altogether have it. shared responsibility from the greens. the fact is all the parties will promise to build however many new homes it is, the snp, you cannot... mairi, the government is not building homes in any parts of the uk that are anything like at the required rate. first of all, i'm 24 years old, i'm acutely aware of all of these difficulties that you are discussing from your accommodation when you are a student through to saving in your isas and things like that. the scottish national party has built 50,000 affordable homes and helped people into home ownership, 22,000, by shared equity schemes, and we have scrapped the right to buy, and we are going to restore housing benefit for 18 to 21—year old, that is something the tories scrapped. in all these ways, we are trying to help young people in scotland make the really important move into the housing ladder. dominik, in 2015, the tories pledged to build million new homes by 2020, since march, last year, you have built 100 and what...? i know that - it has been 168,350. that is not on track to build 1 million homes by 2020. we have seen 300,000 affordable homes made since 2010, and plans for 400,000 new ones for both encouraging social housing in councils to create housing for rent, but also. what about borrowing, to build affordable homes. we talk about borrowing and the wish list, the money tree that keeps giving money, but the scottish government deficit is three times... we need to do this in a responsible way. you are taking the debt and putting it around the neck of young people. we keep racking up these debts, these young people have to pay them off. taking public debts... it is not right to promise 1 million homes, then, is it? we are redoubling efforts, to deal with rental as well as homes to buy. we need to hear from somebody on the older side of the room — who has a spare room, and wouldn't mind mind renting it out? in all seriousness, who has a fairly big house, plenty of room in it, but you are still living in it and maybe it could help solve the housing crisis? two, in four bedrooms, but i would like to say, i don't think it was any different in our day, getting on the housing ladder, we needed to pay 15%, in my language that equated to almost two years salary, gross, not net, gross. 0k. then, we went through the process just over 1990, where the interest rate on the mortgage actually went up to 16, 17%, every month getting a letter to say it was going up and up and up, when we bought the house, our mortgage doubled. and we had to give into something. and that was our main thing to do, to pay the mortgage. sounds like a lot of these guys have given up on owning their own home, is this an impossible dream? should young people not worry about owning their own home? what about that, will we be a property owning democracy? this generation will not see the same home ownership rates that baby boomers saw. 80% for baby boomers, these guys are around half that and will never get up to 80%, there were hired first—rate, and will never get up to 80%, there were high interest rates, but the flip side, house prices in britain have gone through the roof over the last 30 years. i would like to go back to the point made by dominic on borrowing being a barrier to affordable home building. absolutely no credibility —1 billion in government debt to 1.7... 1 trillion, to 1.7 trillion, how on earth do you think your government track record is credible at all? until you have paid off the deficit, you cannot... until you pay off the deficit, you cannot... you cannot get the debt down, we have... the debt is increasing, the debt is increasing. until you get the deficit down... that shows you how important it is... austerity... right back to where we started. austerity is an ideological choice, you can grow your way out of debt, of debt, grow to a surplus. we are not going to take lessons from the snp on economics. laughter lot of the policies we are pursuing in scotland... the scottish economy contracted at the end of 2016, your budget deficit is three times... that is a key indicator of economic... the gentleman on the second row, in the under 30 section. i grew up in quality housing, i have lived with high costs i grew up in poor quality housing, i have lived with high costs and poor conditions for a long time, i don't think... it has got worse and worse in recent years... i don't think that is because the economy is rigged for the old, it is because it is rigged for the rich, it is no tory mps are landlords, they have modelled on revenge evictions, the wealthiest tory mp in the country has jacked up rents, so the families who lived there all their lives could not afford to live there anymore. how much longer are we going to go on with 3 million children living in damp and mould and vermin in the sixth richest economy in the world, how much longer will we accept this? what would you do if you were in power? she is bang on the money, 1 million new homes, half... half public, half... it is possible, if you stop building luxury flats and start building affordable homes. and if you have a bit of planning and strategy rather than just... to bring in ukip. you heard that this is the end of a property owning democracy in the same way it was before. do we just have disabled people are not going to be able to afford their own homes in the future, and it will all be landlords perhaps from this bracket who will be renting out their homes? it is not acceptable but decisions have been made over the past 20 years which have led to the situation we're in. there is a lot of unreality in what i've been hearing, we talk about affordable homes but those could be 80% of market price if the market price is 300,000 unaffordable home is 240,000. that is still not affordable. everyone has made promises to build and for 20 years it has not happened. we have not mentioned as ukip have mentioned often, you cannot separate the housing crisis from immigration levels that we have had. and over the last 20 years there has been huge increase in immigration which has been a deliberate policy of tony blair, david cameron and theresa may and together with not building enough homes for the demand. who thinks that the housing crisis is due to immigration, show of hands? two or three hands. it is basic supply and demand and you cannot separate the two. it is a factor as it is in schools. there are many empty homes in deprived areas in parts of wales. people cannot afford to buy them. the conservative representative has talked about controlling national debt and they have failed to get to grips with that but they're happy with young people going heavily into debt. many of them will not reach the pain threshold for when they start to pay many of them will not reach the pay threshold for when they start to pay back their student loan. that is the reality of the problems young people are facing. i'm getting confused and irritated to some extent. i have five children, two of them bought good houses in this area in their mid—20s. just in the past five years. i do not understand all this difficulty. do not tell the people down south for goodness' sake but one of the benefits of living in this area is housing is affordable. i do not understand most of the arguments. and i have examples. let's bring in the labour representative. as previous mp for this area, housing was one of the top three issues constituents came to see me about every week. house prices are more reasonable here but the incomes are much lower and the ability to save for the deposit also lower. so i have a young woman constituent working for the government on a very good wage and she cannot afford to buy her home. that is not being reckless. does that ring true with anyone from the under 305? i'm from london and am considering, i have to move back home now and it is embarrassing, but that is just the issue. prices are now extortionate. do not be embarrassed. is there a geographical split, a difference? there are geographical differences in house prices and earnings across the country. the north—east has a higher rate of home ownership but it is not just a london issue. places like west yorkshire and greater manchester, over a 50% decline in home ownership amongst young families since just the 19905. and the older half of the audience? i'm a buy to let landlord, i invested in buy to let. i did not want to, did that because i want attention i did not want to, did that because i want a pension and annuity rates have crashed. one of the reasons that, one of the benefits for being young nowadays is interest rates are so low. what i was playing, 15% interest on a mortgage in the 19805. the only way that i could build up a pension fund was to go into buy to let. what you're saying is that housing for you is an investment and not a place to live. exactly — but only because i cannot get a decent annuity rate. do you understand how some landlords are rapacious and actually some of them have bad properties that they do not maintain. do you think that you really set the fair rent? i setjust below the market rent. but i do everything in accordance with the law and the returns on buy to let are pretty poor if you do everything properly. this guy has several houses. who sees it as a realistic investment for the future? nobody. house prices have steadily been increasing and will continue to increase as long as we have a strong economy. the only way to do that is to get a conservative government. we are running short of time on housing. i think there is a clear split in the room over that. with brexit ahead what kind of country do we want to live in? older and younger voters have always been polarised. so we would expect them to disagree. 65% of betty and her buddies think that membership of the eu has eroded british identity. but less than a third of matt's mates would agree. in fact, almost 43% of those under 30 consider themselves to be europeans first. in the days after the brexit vote, matt was one of the three out of four young people who voted to remain. he complained that his identity had been taken away by the 64% of over 605 who voted to leave. betty might argue that more young people ought to have turned out to vote. there was a 64% turnout amongst 18 to 24—year—olds, whereas 90% of betty's friends voted. but now that article 50 has been triggered, just how much do betty and matt disagree? not so much, is the answer. the under 305 overwhelmingly think that eu citizens already living here should be allowed to stay. and 78% of the over 605 agree. betty and matt also agree that eu companies should be able to continue to trade goods and services as they do now. in fact while most under 305 think that british companies should continue to comply with eu regulations more than half of betty's generation agrees. so are we ready as divided as we think? let's look at the banks of young people. what kind of britain do you want to live in, a britain that has fewer migrants, more migrants? i was not old enough to vote in the eu referendum. but my future has been plunged into uncertainty by the older people who voted to leave the eu. i will not have the chance to study abroad if we have to pull out of erasmus. i will not have the chance to have foreign lecturers and i want to live in a country where we can accept these people, except people from other countries and embrace the culture they bring and embrace them as citizens. i think a lot of what is being said amongst young people in the wake of the referendum is scaremongering in terms of erasmus, immigration and other things. the whole reason, the reason i think a lot of people voted to leave is because they wanted to control, not necessarily because the numbers needed to come down but they needed to be control. people study abroad outside of the eu and you can still do that. so voted to leave amongst the over 605 question this young lady says you have stolen our future. i'm not against people coming in from different countries but ijust think, i feel our culture, it is the culture, i feel it has changed too much and i'm worried for my granddaughters. did your granddaughters get a vote? one isjust coming up to 19, so she is going to vote. did you talk to them about voting? absolutely. what they think? they have own thoughts that i gave them mine as well! and the gentleman just behind, did you vote leave? i see brexit in the town i live in, hartlepool, 70% leave, i see the town and whole country becoming much more mean—spirited and narrow—minded and like this lady i'm worried about my grandchildren. they go to a school where there are 13 nationalities, asylum seekers, refugees, and their education has been greatly enriched and it is a wonderful school. and if that was to stop then this country would be poorer for it. that gentleman is saying that having these different nationalities in a classroom is an enriching experience. the young woman behind people who voted brexit have stolen her future as a kind of of international person. absolutely not, we're still going to be friends with european countries, we will still have links and friendships with people all around the world. people will still be able to visit and we will still give out student visas. what we have seen since brexit i think, all of the fear, all the things that people said were going to happen that were bad have not happened. we have not had brexit yet. since the referendum. i think the gentleman says we have not seen anything but people have become more scared of different people. i never experienced racism before brexit but i have since. apart from these other logistical things it has created a narrower society. do you think that older people have stolen your future in the sense that they made a decision about your future and not their future? i do not want to blame all old people but i feel some of them have done that. i will not have free movement, not be able to travel abroad if i want to, so many things. i think that our culture is enriched by migration. i'm a descendant of an irish immigrant and i have given a lot to this country. things like public services are built on migration, 40% of nhs nurses are eu immigrants. we need free movement. dominic bradley, can you look these people under 30 in the eye and said that if we do not get the deal we want it will be ok if we cut ourselves loose? i understand the nerves of young people but there are also opportunities here and we are fighting for a successful brexit. let me finish the argument. my vision is an optimistic vision, britain as a self—governing democracy, strong relationships with european friends but also a global horizon. that is important because the jobs of the future will come from trading with emerging economies and free trade is also a great way to bring down prices. blaming older people for the brexit result, a massive proportion of young voters did not bother to turn out. and a lot of the older people who voted brexit with the same ones that voted to join the eu and the first place and they have seen the progression of the political union. a key point is that a lot of people, young people, did not turn out. would that have made a difference if they had turned out? no and it is not right to say there was a low turnout amongst young people at the brexit referendum. in the brexit referendum we had a higher turnout amongst younger people than previously. 60% as opposed to 50% in general elections. the question now is if they're going to turn out to vote in this coming general election. there has been higher registration in the coming weeks. i voted remain and i voted remain because i agree that we may be are stealing the future from youngsters. i also remain because i believe we may now be facing a crash in the economy. it could well happen. so it is right to remain. i voted remain but i understand the reasons of those who voted for brexit. one is cultural, and that was mentioned just over there. i think it is important for anyone coming to this country or for those of us who are british going elsewhere, to go into whichever environment we are in and learn and absorb the culture and be part of that environment. i understand why they did that, i think it is important to integrate people properly. also those who voted for brexit because they were afraid fortheirjobs, being taken by people coming into the country, we have to go back to the changing world that we have. when we spoke earlier about going to university, you must go and study the right things, have the right skills. the world is changing in terms of work so what is important is that schools, education, it is appropriate. we have not heard from the liberal democrats. just how hard are you prepared to stand up against a hard brexit? very hard. you began to see the leave campaign evaporate on the morning of the 24th ofjune. the £350 million pledge. we believe those who started the process should be given the final say on the deal, the british people. if there is any deal. it is astonishing to hear the rhetoric from dominic, this is the opportunity stuff when he has no comfort for the many millions of citizens from the eu used as bargaining chips in this country. another show of hands, who is feeling optimistic about their future in the uk? if you're listening on the radio, just a handful of hands on either side. anyone want to quickly tell us why they feel optimistic? i think we have a great opportunity now, an opportunity to speak to other countries which we did not have the chance to before. america is reaching out to us, we have plenty of other countries outside the eu who want to make deals with us. they want to talk with us and our negotiations and trade deals. it is all there regardless of what happens with the eu. i feel optimistic because the polls are closing, there's a chance we might elect a compassionate and real human being as a leader. if we can bring injeremy corbyn, we will create a revolution and hope for the future. cani can i respond to this guy? we are optimistic because we are in charge of our own destiny and borders. we can choose who comes in and the skills of who comes in. we can control that. we would have a way infrastructure which cannot cope with open borders. it cannot. we are running out of time... let's go to this lady... i think it was mainly a tory press headline. and very quickly, on the front row?|j tory press headline. and very quickly, on the front row? i am optimistic because what i know about the british is that we have the ability to see the opportunity in this situation... clapping thank you very much. that is all we have time for here in newcastle. thank you for our audience, whatever age you are, and our politicians. that's all, just eight days to go into that all—important eight days to go into that all—importa nt vote. from eight days to go into that all—important vote. from newsnight and newsbeat, good night. good morning. a chilly start of the day in the northern half of the uk. major towns and cities in single figures, other spots a few degrees lower. temperatures of 13 or 14 degrees, not as warm as it has been recently. into double figures, a lot of cloud in the south first thing, breaking up. a shower or two, few and far between. lovely further north, some spells of sunshine, cloud and northern ireland. 22 or 23 degrees in the london area. through the evening, any showers we see feet away —— fade away. there is a weather front coming into the north and west. by dawn, most places are dry, nowhere near as chilly first thing on thursday, in the north of the uk. this weatherfront thing on thursday, in the north of the uk. this weather front brings thing on thursday, in the north of the uk. this weatherfront brings in wind and rain, initially in northern ireland and into western scotland. head of that, fine and warm. 20 degrees and it could go as high as 2425. -- 20 425. welcome to newsday. a show of force, america successfully tests its anti—missile system in the pacific as concerns grow over north korea's ambitions. the tropical cyclone leaves a trail of destruction in bangladesh, thousands are homeless. lam in bangladesh, thousands are homeless. i am in london, also in the programme. . . i am in london, also in the programme... ariana grande will return to manchester for a benefit concert to aid the victims of the bombing last week. this is kaza khsta n bombing last week. this is kazakhstan desert. they revive the ancient trade routes east to west. live from our studios in singapore and london...