day. the shadow health secretary wes streeting has said he would have liked labour to have been more ambitious in its plans for social care in its election manifesto. in an interview this morning, he acknowledged that successive governments of all parties had failed to deal with the problems in the sector. a leading health think tank warned that the nhs is facing its tightest spending for decades and called on all the main parties to be more transparent about that. hannah miller reports. good morning, how are we doing? keir starmer campaigning this weekend, claiming he will get to the nhs back on its feet. but that will require more ambitious treatment, says a leading health think tank as it warns both the conservatives and labour that their current manifesto commitments amount to the tightest spending plans in nhs history. with a lack of social care support, one of the key reasons the nhs is struggling, today labour had to defend why it has not come up with a clearer plan for reform. you're still offering people a vague "we'll talk about it, we maybe fix it in the long—term". i think being honest with people that building a national care service is work that is a decade in the making. that is honest and that is where the credibility comes from. i make no bones about the fact of course on social care i would have wanted the manifesto to be more ambitious, but to get policies in the manifesto, you had to run the gauntlet of answering two fundamental questions — can we keep this promise? can the country afford this promise? the conservatives jumped on that to try to claim labour would end up spending more of your money. but their plan to limit social care costs to a maximum of £86,000 has been repeatedly delayed and faces questions about its funding. i think he has let the cat out of the bag a bit about labour's plans. he confirmed both on your show and on one he did earlier that their manifesto was not actually the whole story — it was not actually a programme for government, it was to get them through the election campaign. he confirmed that there are more spending promises to come, and that can mean only one thing — it means more taxes. both labour and the conservatives are signed up to a plan to bring in thousands more staff to the nhs, which would require funding to increase significantly to almost £200 billion by 2028. but this is the level of funding they've allocated in their manifestos — around £20 billion less. the nuffield trust says it amounts to tougher spending plans than even during austerity. the liberal democrats have pledged very slightly more, but still way below what is required. the liberal democrat figure does not include their plans for free personal care for those who need it. if you do not support the family carers, as well as the care workers, you are not going to sort this out. and i am absolutely passionate that we will do that. we have come forward with probably the most ambitious agenda on it and i'm really excited about it. and because we have talked about it, we have had a really strong reaction from people. politicians from all parties have said they need to work together to address the social care challenge. the question is who voters trust more and whether anyone will deliver. hannah miller, bbc news. the liberal democrats are gaining some ground hoping to grab conservative seats as they promise free personal care for the elderly and more gps and joining the eu single market. but it's the leader ed davey�*s photo ops that have really been getting attention. he's been speaking to laura kuenssberg. in terms of the things we've been doing, the stunts, actually, the real issue is engaging people, and they have done. and one of the reasons i'm so pleased to be on your programme is to talk about what liberal democrats are standing for. we're standing for health and care. we put that at the centre of our manifesto. we're talking about the cost of living, and that's not coming up enough. people are really struggling out there. and we're talking about the environment. we're the ones campaigning against the sewage scandal, for example. and i'm determined in all the seats that we can win across the blue wall against many conservatives in the west country and so many other places, people hear about what the democrats stand for from our local champions, because we could make real gains at this election. and we will talk about those policies. and you've already actually had wes streeting say your ideas on social care are good ones, and we will come to that. but isn't there a risk, though? we heard it from lee castleton. we have had emails from some other viewers about this that people watch what you're doing and they think you're not really taking this seriously and perhaps you're not taking them seriously. well, we're taking the voters�* concerns really seriously. that's why we've been putting forward all these policy proposals, and whenever we do one of those stunts to engage people so i show that i'm not taking myself too seriously, i'm taking the voters seriously. we've had lots of policy ideas. so when i was coming down that slide, we were talking about mental health. while you were on the slide, talking about mental health? well, actually, the bbc were covering our policy as i came down and i was pleased that they did, because it's really important we've got a crisis, the mental health of our young people. we've got hundreds of thousands of young people waiting for therapies, waiting for counselling, waiting for support. and what we've said is let's make sure there's a qualified mental health professional in every primary school and every secondary school. let's fund that by asking the social media giants to pay more in digital services tax. and so we've come forward with a very, very significant policy. and, you know, when i had the baker's hat on and i was baking biscuits with schoolkids, but we're talking about free school meals. and one of the policies in your manifesto is to have an office for whistle—blowers, to have much more protection for people who call out bad bosses or bad practices in their workplace or wherever else. yes, very important. and you say there it's very important. but lee castleton, who was one of those sub—postmasters and you were a post office minister at a time when some of the horizon scandal was unfolding, he wants to know, how can we trust anyone with your record on the post office scandal to do the right thing by whistle—blowers in government? well, because the whistle—blower was key in the horizon scandal, we really only heard it in the panorama programme by bbc in 2015, quite a few years after i left office, and then in 2019 in the high court case, and that whistle—blower from fujitsu and inside fujitsu said actually the post office have been telling lies to subpostmasters, to ministers, to courts and judges. that whistle—blower was crucial, as the itv drama on alan bates showed. his question is how could people trust you to protect whistle—blowers when you were post office minister, one of the people who was in charge of the system when concerns were already being raised? now i know you say you weren't told or you would have done something about it, but some of the campaigners feel that you didn't do enough, that you weren't listening. well, i was listening. actually, i was the first minister to meet alan bates, and i took his issues really seriously. in the end. well, the first minister to meet him, and i put his to the post office, and i think i was the only minister who did that in that level of detail. and i was lied to just like the subpostmasters were lied to, just like thejudges and the courts were lied to. and that's why the whistle—blower is so important. we have to change the system. you know, laura, we've seen it in the contaminated blood scandal. we've seen it in the hillsborough scandal. you know, you can't run a system if people are lied to. you know, you need to find a way through that. so we've got several issues, actually — the whistle—blower protection and it's been liberal democrats leading on that, the duty of candour to make sure that public servants have to tell the truth. and there's a whole range of things that i'd like to see changed. and when i give evidence to the inquiry, which i've campaigned for, because i want these people to be held to account, they've imposed the most awful misery on hundreds of people, when we have that inquiry, i'm looking forward to giving evidence to it. let's talk about some of your other policies, then, aand you have very movingly made your experience of caring for your disabled son, john, part of your campaign to give more support to carers and really free adult social care was the centrepiece really of your manifesto, wasn't it? but you also served as a minister during the coalition government between 2010 and 2015. it made significant cuts to the support for people in those kinds of situations. do you regret that now? well, actually, if you look back at that record, the liberal democrat record with great liberal democrat ministers, we produced the care act of 2014 that came from the dilnot commission, and it would have meant that we'd have had proper care from 2015, 2016. what happened then? the conservatives alone reneged on their promises, even though there have been a legislation in parliament which everyone have voted for. the question i'm asking is about what happened when you were in government, not what happened after. and when you were in government, real term spending on social care fell. there's a lot of evidence that shows that people who have real difficulties in life struggled enormously as a result of the austerity that was enacted during that period when you were in government. do you regret how far it went? well, it's true there were some difficult decisions. we fought the conservatives every day. we managed to get through the care act in when we were in government and if that had gone on, 1 million more people would be getting care now. but the conservatives didn't take that forward. and asking about the decision to remove some funding from people who believe very strongly that they needed it. you were part of that government. do you regret being part of those decisions? i fought the conservatives very hard. you were part of it. you could have resigned, said, "i don't want any part of this". i'm asking a straightforward question, you've talked very movingly and i think very honestly about the situation that families where they have relatives who need care find themselves in. many people really struggled with the outcomes of those decisions that were made by the coalition government. do you regret being part of that? well, there were tough decisions, that's really clear. but what we were doing was planning for the future to get much more generous care. and the 2014 care act was at the heart of that and liberal democrats championed that. i remember debating it in cabinet and pushing that forward. and unfortunately, in 2015 we thought the conservatives would continue that and they didn't, and look what they did after we left office and they were by themselves — the first budget of george osborne, he cut the welfare spending in one year by £12 billion. now, we had stopped that, we had fought them and we'd stopped them cutting the welfare budget by that huge amount, which really caused huge problems. and we'd planned for the future. and i'm really proud that actually in our manifesto now we're taking forward some of those plans, both because improving care is right in itself, it's hugely important to help the health service. ijust don't believe you can sort out the health service and rescue it unless you sort out social care. and here's the other thing which no—one is talking about except for the liberal democrats, and it's partly because of my personal experience and i was a young carer when my mum was terminally ill. then when my grandmother, who looked after me after my mum died, i looked after her a bit and then i have my disabled son, so i've got a whole lifetime of caring and both my own experience and the experience of millions of people out there, millions of people, is that the family carers are critical. and what i want to say at this election is if you don't support the family carers as well as the care workers, you're not going to sort this out. and i am absolutely passion that we're going to do that. we've come forward with probably the most ambitious agenda on it. i'm really excited about it. and you know, because we've talked about it, we've had a really strong reaction from people who really think that we get who really think that we get it. and to pay for it you're proposing more than £26 billion of tax rises on big business. are you not worried about the effect that that might have? well, let me take you through those. 0n the health and care plan, it's about £9 billion. and there are two big things that we're doing for that. we're basically taking the tax on banks back to what it was in 2016 under the conservatives. the conservatives have cut taxes on their big banks. you think those businesses can take it? we're short of time. you think the business won't be affected? they took it in 2016. and the other bit, the capital gains tax is going to be paid by the 0.10, 0.1% of the population who basically the billionaires are multimillionaires because at the moment they're paying a lower tax rate on their capital gains than the rest of us on our income. that's not fair. do you think you're now to the left of the labour party to the left of the labour party? we're the liberal democrats. and i'm so proud of our manifesto. we think we can beat lots of conservatives, some snp. and i think the more people look at our manifesto on health and care, on ending the sewage scandal and the cost of living, the more they look at their local liberal democrat, they know they get a local champion with a big, strong national voice. so i hope people back us on 4th ofjuly. the televised leaders debates in the past couple of weeks have given a chance to the leaders of some of the smaller parties to flash their wares, rhun ap iorwerth, the leader of plaid cymru. his party has three out of forty welsh westminster seats and its manifesto wants more public spending, and bigger windfall taxes on energy companies. he's been speaking to laura kuennsberg. in 2021, you stood for a referendum on welsh independence, but now you're only offering a consultation. so why have you backed off that haven't backed off at all? i was listening to brian cox speaking earlier. it's right there on page one of our manifesto. you're my firm belief that i've had all my life that wales won't reach its potential until we have all those levers of change in our own hands. i believe it's in the hands of the people of wales what the timescale is for that. but interestingly, listening to brian cox, he was talking... we clearly see the world in the same way. i believe in independence, but i'm not an isolationist in any way. i'm an internationalist and i see welsh independence as part of the redesigning of the uk, where as independent nations then would work very, very closely together. but this isn't an independence election. this is about getting fair play for wales in the here and now. but it's what you believe so strongly, though, why not have in your manifesto actually a demand for a referendum? because a consultation, we hear it often from politicians in the studio on sunday mornings, promising a consultation is promising some more chat and then maybe a commission and then things take time. why back off from your clear request, demand perhaps, for a referendum again? again, well, there is clearly a demand implicit for a referendum, because we want to get to that point where we ask the people of wales if they are ready to embrace this. the fascinating thing for me as somebody who's believed this all my life is the direction that we've been on in recent years. we're now regularly a third of people, 50% of the younger age group say yes to independence, but it's about getting more people curious in what it might mean and answering those questions about the challenges that we face. there was an independent commission recently, government appointed, on the constitutional future of wales that said there are three viable options for us more devolution, perhaps federalism — bit difficult, i think, given the size of england. and the third viable one is independence, so it's viable, we can do it. it's about getting people excited about what it is. and that of course means recognising what the challenges are too. do you think you'll see it in your lifetime? there's no reason why not. that wasn't my question. do you think it will happen is a different question. there's no reason why not. and it can. and it's up to the people of wales. that's the key thing here. i don't believe that wales�* situation now is the best it could be. i don't think the uk's situation now is the best it could be. i think many people watching this, this morning, whether they're in wales or elsewhere, thinks that something needs to happen in politics in these islands that leads in a different direction. one of the things that i think could be very valuable for everybody, wherever they are, is to have that redesign. but for now, in this election, it's about in this uk context making sure that wales has that fairness that we deserve. you have been arguing that wales is old because hs2 was cancelled. we asked the transport secretary if he would pony up cash and he said no, that you run. would pony up cash and he said no, that you run-— would pony up cash and he said no, that you rum— that you run. they give it to scotland, — that you run. they give it to scotland, and _ that you run. they give it to scotland, and northern - that you run. they give it to - scotland, and northern ireland. the way funding is meant to work, if money is given to england, there are consequentials to wales, scotland and northern ireland. this is a project, and england and wales project, and england and wales project, even though there is not a centimetre of track in wales. kpmg said it would be detrimental to the welsh economy, yet we are paying for it. spending on h —— as spending on hs2 goes up, spending in wales goes down. i do not think that is a just situation also needs to be addressed and imagine what we could do with that for a bleep account for connectivity prevails. in your manifesto — connectivity prevails. in your manifesto you _ connectivity prevails. in your manifesto you say _ connectivity prevails. in your manifesto you say you - connectivity prevails. in your - manifesto you say you won't have net zero carbon emissions by 2025 —— 2035, but that is extremely stretching. is it is? i 2035, but that is extremely stretching. is it is?- 2035, but that is extremely stretching. is it is? i think we have stretching. is it is? ithink we have to be — stretching. is it is? ithink we have to be setting _ stretching. is it is? ithink we have to be setting the - stretching. is it is? ithink we have to be setting the bar - stretching. is it is? i think we - have to be setting the bar high. for us in wales in particular, given that we are energy rich, there is an economic element to this as well as policies and aspirations that allow us to reach our environmental obligations. now, labour in wales agree with those that the crown estate should be devolved so we can make the most of our natural resources. you labour say no, just as they say no to other elements. labour in wales are being this powered by uk labour, that is why we need at the plaid cymru voice. 0ur pollsterjohn curtice tells us in 60 seconds how the overall picture is looking for the main parties on the polls. 0ne poll this week stole the headlin