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 her studio audience here tonight. Tonight we give out some of the biggest we get at the questions are part of the election. The main parties in scotland england are all represented tonight. The leaders are Natalie Bennett nick clegg nigel berridge of the u. K. Independent pardon, edward miliband, 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 caps off and effect every day life. You can get instant analysis is going to our website. If you want to comment it is leaders debate. The order in which they go have been decided. First, Natalie Bennett, your Opening Statement. Natalie oh biggest big bonuses were inevitable. They were not. You all deserve better. Lets put principles and values first. That is why i got into politics. The dream party is determined to not take the workers pay for the errors of the bankers. Were committed to returning to the founding principles, no private money going into private coffers. We know we must take real action on climate change. The biggest threat a thing as all. Other parties trade in fear. Fear of immigrants, demonizing people on benefits. But to build a decent, Humane Society we start with help. Vote for change, vote for me. Thank you. Now we go to nigel farage. Nigel they may look different but all are the same. All six of for britains membership of the European Union. 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 the u. K. And we believe this country should be a selfgoverning nation. We believe we are getting to do that. We believe this is depressed the wages, made buying houses are youngsters very difficult. Made it tough to get an appointment and not being different countries. We have a positive alternative. Lets have revealed europe. But make involved laws. Lets take back control our own quarter 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. Deputy Prime Minister clegg i think it is pretty obvious no one standing there will win the election outright. Well have to choose who will have to work with who. I am not going to pretend everything ok, although the country is in a lot better shape than five years ago. I will not even pretend i have not made the. What you will get from me and from level liberal democrats is this, the grit and resilience to finish the job of balancing balancing the books. I will always act responsibly. I will never let anyone else are of money we dont have an jeopardize your jobs and the economy. About all, i will always act fairly. I will not let anyone else impose ideological cuffs on your house is old and will always serve the whole of the country. Not just parts but the whole of the United Kingdom. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, this is a chance to make scotlands better. That is why my message to people watching in england and Northern Ireland 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 that s p will work to work with those likeminded to deliver change. Like many of you we want alternative to the pain of austerity, and and to the tax and hope of 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 are all of us. Five years ago this country was on the brink and some of the biggest budget deficits anywhere in the world. For the past five years we have been working with the british people for longterm economic land, 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 at 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 in 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 borrowing and spending that got us back 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. We offer 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 committee, the party of wales to make our communities as strong as they can be. Please support to make it the party of westminster. 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. The nhs has been going backwards. Our young people have been fearing they will have a worse life and 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 the reward and we will reward hard work again. If i am Prime Minister, i will reward doctors and nurses. If i am Prime Minister, i will be the 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 past five years. Party leaders, thank you very much for your Opening Statement tonight. Our audience will put their questions directly to the leaders. Each will have one minute to answer before we opened things up for a freeflowing debate. Our first question comes from johnny cheetah. As a 17yearold student of politics, how do each of the party for leaders Party Leaders be able to keep the promise without raising certain taxes or making vast cuts to vital Public Services yet complex i think it is all about family. That is why i do not think you should be faced with the start 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. They want to borrow 70 more than necessary. It is a balance, and it does mean you need to reduce bending, but you also need to make the wealthiest to pay a bit more 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 because it does mean more money for the aging population. The democrat plan will cut less dense and less than conservatives and borrow less than laborers. Prime minister cameron we have a plan that is working. 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 one 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 out taxes. I do not want to do that. I think if we go back to the 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 labor did last time, and we must not let it happen again. Leanne under our plan the deficit would be cut from 90 billion to 30 billion by 2020. We selling no reason to put arbitrary deadlines on cutting the deficit. The austerity measure failed and told the debt would be eliminated, yet debt has gone up. We have seen all of these cuts with so much pain for so little game. The banks have had to bail out. Time now or the people to have a bailout in time to invest in Public Services and job creation and to see an end to austerity cuts. The question is right. This coalition was put together to reduce the annual deficit to zero. That is why they 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. Another 10 billion by not taking to brussels every single day. We can and vanity projects that will only benefit a tiny number of people, this saving the parliament 4 billion per year and we need to revisit the formula because english taxpayers are getting a raw deal to say 5 billion per year in doing that. Thank you very much indeed. Nigel we will cut the balance and will do it in a error and better way then tried over the past five years. David camera promise to eliminate the deficit and he failed. We will have fair taxes and reduced reverse the tax cuts for millionaires. 63,000 pounds for every billionaire and bring. Secondly, common sense spending reduction to outside key areas like education and health. Spending will fall. Thirdly, we will do Something Else. Thats not just as bat 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 fairway and better way for our country. Natalie 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 the room. What we have been doing in looking at the deficit is the long way around. We of been have been slashing away of Public Services. Probably near you there is a Childrens Center or library near you closed. Think of a Childrens Center. She used to be providing an essential Public Service to the community, paying tax and national insurance. She had a small amount of income tos and in the community. Now that essential service is gone. Everybody is much power. What we are saying is we knew a to raise taxes on those that are currently not paying their share. Multinational companies in particular if they pay their share in the world richest country we can afford to have a Decent Society and a call to have decent Public Services. Nicola cutting the deficit is important. 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 look at the spending increases over the next parliament. It will take long slightly longer to eliminate completely but the deficit with completely to fall would continue to fall. That alternative plan would mean we have resources to invest in infrastructure and skills and innovation and things to get the economy growing. That kind of alternative plan must be better than a blamed commitment to austerity that does not take any account of the damage being done to our society. You have major Opening Statements in the first questions. Time to open the floor to contest each others arguments. Deputy Prime Minister clegg my question is for David Cameron. He is just said he wants to raise 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 a driven cut to the school. When i hear the conservatives talk about the choice, just imagine the chaos in peoples lives, the people who and nhs do not know where to find the money. That is why johnny is right. You need to take a balanced approach. You need to reduce ending but also asked the richest to make the sacrifice. Prime minister cameron that gets wrong about the plane. 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 what the deficit matters and why we got here. The problem with the real choices with ed miliband who thinks the government did not taxed too much, spent too much and borrow too much. If you do not understand the mistake of the past, you cannot provide the leadership for the future. Edward david, you just said you were tackling tax avoidance. Lets look at the reality on this here yet you have not acted on the cap haven. You have not acted on hedge fund. We show you how you can raise over a billion pounds for the nhs. 20,000 more nurses. 3000 more midwives. You have to ask yourself at home, why want David Cameron act on those hedge funds cap they fund his party and will not have the leadership to tackle Prime Minister cameron once again he is wrong. Just this week he introduced a tax to go after the companies that make money in britain and do not pay taxes in britain. Eris what he is not telling you because he does not support any of this ending deficiencies, he wants to make a very big cut put up taxes and cut your take 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 mystic for the country. They argue when they have been handing glove imposing austerity on the country, he is said in opening remarks everyone apart from him had been true 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 going to be living in this poverty by 2020. What i want to do, im back using the tax and invest in the children, nothing new there weapons. This country cannot afford more cut in the next parliament. We need to see spending rise. I am hearing half of the panel think they have no problems with the debt at all and the other half thing they have been prudent with spending. Bending got completely out of control under labor and many of the coalition would bring it back under control. We had doubled the national talks of pledge in the past five years. We have a massive problem here. It seems to me we have run a miss. What we are done is maxed out credit cards. We have a dental dreadful death program. I do not think making this is Still Necessary the best solution to our problem. It comes back to the simple issue of how you balance the books but do it fairly. I do not believe you do it by just letting the very richest off scott free. Their plans do not involve a single extra contribution through the time system. I do not believe it is fair to do with the labor party wants to do which is increased borrowing. You have done it so far balancing the books on the back of the poor. 79 Million People 79,000 people 30 of young people thank you. Edward you we hear lots of mongering tonight. I think it is a big decision for our country. David cameron needs to double the cuts in funding next year. Wants to double the cut in ending next year. Is that really a balanced plan . The nhs has gone backwards under David Cameron. I think it is much better to put it on the back of the tax payers. 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 has been a higher bid to gdp ratio. No one worried about it much. The rest in you are borrowing. If you are borrowing for the rent 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 cap, this has been born overwhelmingly by the most vulnerable in the society. 8000 of the most disabled people in our Society Support are stashed away. We have to be a humane, fair and Decent Society in support the most vulnerable. The truth about this is well of 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 labor left in the treasury when we arrived in government five years ago amanda said, 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 buried 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 empowered they would do it all over again. Isnt that the truth . Prime minister camero