General Election 2017: The Final Debate Newsbeat Debates

APPLAUSE Good evening.

Welcome to Manchester. It is almost here, less than 36 hours to go, on

Thursday it is the general election, your chance to decide on who is

running the country. Tonight, we are here with 18 to 25-year-olds to hear

what is on your mind stop tonight, it is all about you. Hi, I am Giles

and one of my friends was taken in the Manchester attack. My question

to the candidates is if they think it's morally just to use terror

attack victim is that their own political ends. My concern is the

NHS, how will the government continue to fund it and how will

waiting times for appointments and surgery be reduced for those

desperately in need? OK, plenty more from these tonight

and we are joined by senior politicians from seven parties who

will be listening and responding to what everyone has got to say. They

are, for the Conservatives. Representing the Labour Party, said

area champion. The Scottish National Party. Ukip, the Liberal Democrats

and Plaid Cymru join us and for the Green Party, their co-leader. Also,

give them applause. APPLAUSE

. Also, Jonathan Blake is working with BBC Reality Check looking at

the numbers promises we will hear about by working out what really

stacks up. And it is going through comments we have been getting all

day on #BBCDebate. First, tonight, after two

devastating terror attacks in two weeks, including in Manchester,

security has become a bigger part of the election campaign, in particular

how best to protect British people from future attacks. Police numbers

in England and Wales have fallen by almost 20,000 since 2010 and numbers

have gone down in Northern Ireland. Although in Scotland they have been

more or less increasing the last 30 years. Police budgets in England and

Wales were reduced by almost a fifth between 2010 and 2015 and since then

they have been protected and counterterrorism funding has risen

with inflation. Since 2000 various governments have introduced nine

anti-terrorist laws including the ability to stop suspects from

re-entering the UK and keeping people deemed a threat under house

arrest. The current threat level is that severe, meaning an attack is

highly likely. There have been three attacks in the last 77 days in the

UK, although the Home Office say intelligence services have prevented

five since the attack on Westminster in March. We can get your thoughts

on the best way to protect British people. My name is Benjamin, I am

18. Across the wake of the terror attacks I found the dialogue has

been about unity between political parties and people from different

walks of life. Why is it the Conservative Party has been divisive

by saying enough is enough and we are too soft on terror? OK, some

more of your comments. I am Jessica, I want to know what we are going to

do to stop attacks happening in the first place, instead of worrying

about how many police you have on the streets to deal with it when it

is happening. I understand the Conservatives want to introduce

terror offences, what else will be done? We hear they are on watch

lists. What will we do to tackle extremism? I am 22 and live across

from Manchester Arena and did not get much sleep on the night of the

attack. I went to the One Love Manchester when Manchester and the

UK is coming together, it seems Westminster is intent on tearing

itself apart. What will we see from you in terms of solution? From the

Conservatives, what will Tom seek tonight? I will try to cover all

three comments. I came to the country in 1978, I was 11 and could

not speak English. My parents had to flee Iraq from a dictator. My

parents embraced the country that rescued them and we integrated and I

learned English within six months and went to university and built a

great business. I am the candidate now, I was the MP for Stratford upon

Avon. This country has incredible values of freedom, opportunity,

democracy rule of law, tolerance. One of the things we have not done

well is integration but also for too long we have tolerated people who

have preached extremism and hatred, people who preached intolerance to

our values and way of life. Misogyny, all sorts of things. We

have to call those people out in our communities. The mainstream Muslim

community is equally targeted by extremists, by these criminals,

because they target Muslims as well as people outside the religion. What

we have to do is come together as political parties and as a community

and call-out intolerance and say it is wrong, our society is not like

that. We are proud of what we are. What Manchester did at the concert

was incredible and that should be our role model of how we deal with

this. I would like us to come together. Let's not tear chunks out

of one another but say how can we work together to get the right

legislation through Parliament? Not just legislation, also how do we

call out these extremist? Tom, can you give more detail about the types

of things, the conversation the politicians are having that switches

you off? It is the aggressive nature of politics, especially Prime

Minister's Questions and debates, I watched the leaders debate and it

was a complete noise. I see it translates into social media. We are

on Facebook, Twitter as young people and the moment somebody puts a

political point of view, we get the same aggressive comments that you

seem to throw back at each other, especially Labour and Conservatives

and we have seen Labour pointing the finger at Theresa May and saying

this is your fault, these people died because of you as Home

Secretary. It is not right to blame one person. It is not right and we

should pull back from that. One thing I would say is what you see on

Wednesday afternoon, my ministers questions, is not what we do. If you

look at the committee stage of any Bill, the Foreign Affairs Committee

I sat on, where we had a fantastic report into the intervention in

Libya. Sited on many news programmes in the campaign as being a good

report. That was cross-party and we work together in committees and that

work is the real work of Parliament. I hope young people get to see that.

Sadly, most of it takes place in the background, rather than the other

bit of politics. I have to to defend my party, we deliberately through

this campaign have not done the name-calling. What you say about

Theresa May, we aren't looking at her record. Six of the seven years

she was the Home Secretary in charge of police and security and I think

it acceptable to look at policies and decisions politicians make. But

I agree it is unacceptable to name call. To go back to the bigger

picture, I would say in the last five years it has become more Axa

doubled to use despicable language which I would say is getting close

to hate crime, on social media. Politicians use it, posters we are

seeing. The Brexit campaign was a vile example of that. Glad it feels

in this election that has calmed, but we have to have zero tolerance

of that. To look at the big picture, it is not just a knee jerk reaction

of bringing in more police and legislation. We need, from the

youngest age, to teach people about respect and tolerance and embedding

bat and bringing back things like the youth service, which has been

decimated in the past seven years. The place where young people can be

channelled if they are saying things that are too upsetting,

controversial, radical. That system is not there now. We see schools

under resourced and youth services disappear and community police are

not there. Those levels that would have been like canaries, when things

are going wrong, we could have said let's put support around that

person. With that gone it becomes inevitable it is only when someone

does something utterly despicable and I am really sorry for the people

impacted in what has happened in these atrocities. We should not just

be waiting until that moment. We should have done something decades

before. APPLAUSE

We can get more of your thoughts. I am Claire from Manchester and I have

a question for everybody. After the recent horrible attacks I have seen

more armed police. Is that something you would look at installing

permanently? What is everybody's review? Brian Paddick, you have an

experience as a retired police officer. You want to put more money

into local police but would it be armed police? There are two macro

issues. You have to have the police to respond as you said. When an

incident like this happens. In London there was a great number of

armed response vehicles who responded quickly to deal with the

incident. I am concerned in other parts of the country there might not

be enough armed officers because there are 1000 less than ten years

ago, 1000 fewer armed officers. That is one aspect but the most important

as far as we are concerned is this erosion of community policing. As

well as the 20,000 police officers we have lost since 2010 we have lost

24,000 support officers and the police community support officers

are a big part of those community teams. It means that some

communities begin to lose trust and confidence in police because they do

not have a local officer they can relate to and when that happens it

means you do not get the intelligence. Did people see the

report is the day after the London Bridge attack. One of the neighbours

of one of those involved said, I remember, early on Saturday, he was

over a friendly and then started talking to me about hiring a van.

Now it makes sense. Maybe if have suspicions, and there had been local

community officers, maybe he would have talked to them about his

feelings. We know that guy was already on the radar of the security

services and may be the services may have put two and two together. We

don't think we need more Draconian powers. There are lots of powers the

police and security services have they are not using. We need to make

sure they use them effectively. I am 21 and from Manchester. Just going

from what you were saying, due to the colour of my skin, in the wake

of the awful attacks that have just happened, I am genuinely afraid to

go out into the city, my home of countless years. Why? I am mostly

afraid of hate attacks, not even terrorist attacks, maybe young

people, not just online, but being in public, I take the tram to

university and I am afraid to take the tram now. I'm afraid somebody

might say something and you do not want to engage in confrontation.

What are the different parties doing about this? Some of it has to be

about understanding what is going on. These people carrying out

terrorist attacks believe in a violent political ideology. That

wants to overthrow democracy and overthrow our liberal values. That

is completely different from the Muslim religion. The Muslim religion

is not about overthrowing democracy, it is about worshipping Allah and

living a good life. We have had instances where people following at

Islamist attack, this violent ideology, people start attacking

Sikhs because they do not know the difference between Muslims and

Sikhs. David, from Ukip, how would you respond? I'm glad you mentioned

the word Islamist because this is the root of the problem and we have

to be honest. It is an ideology. There are some Islamic writings that

are problematic and we have to admit that. Some writings that appear to

advocate violence. You mentioned Muslims earlier who are a peaceful

group of Muslims who practice Islam in a peaceful ways. We have other

groups, what I call Islamists, who would take these writings that are

problematic and say they have to be applied literally at all times, not

just seventh century Arabia but 21st-century Britain, and France,

and everywhere else there have been Islamist attacks and we need to deal

with the problem and put police back on the street. We need 20,000 more

police to do community policing because that is a gap left after the

20,000 police that have been cut. We need to deal with Saudi, Qatari

funding of Islamist mosques and stop radicalisation. And this lady who

wants to know what she should do because she fears going out because

of the colour of her skin. I say to anybody watching, it's an

idea, it's nothing to do with the colour of your skin. Everyone needs

to realise that. You have behind douze and Sikhs as well, Hindus. We

need to deal with Islamism, we've got to be honest about that. Can you

understand when a mainstream party like Ukip is putting out its

so-called integration policy, which says that - We need to integrate.

Sorry, can I speak, that says that Muslim women shouldn't be able to

wear headscarfs. We didn't say that, burkhas and niqabs, get it right.

OK. It also says that children basically non-white children when

they come back to school should be checked to see if they've had

genital mutilation. We need to stop FGM. But by humiliating and

separating children is that an acceptable way forward? Diane Abbott

put that forward in 2014. David, can I please possibly speak. Can you see

that a mainstream party saying that is actually exacerbating a and

normalising hate crime. It's not hate crime. Everyone should be able

to be free to criticise an ideology. To talk about writings in the Koran

and to talk about Sharia law, we need to talk about these things. We

need to talk about the ideas there and how it affects people and how

they encourage Islamism, which has led to violent mass murders. We need

to talk about that. We need to be honest about that. Would you like to

reply? I feel like you may not have actually answered what I said

personally, going into the depths of the different categories of Islam. I

mean, you obviously are aware of them. I was just talking about in

general, my safety, my well being, not talking about my religion or the

different categories, just in general, how can we stop other

individuals attacking other individuals in the wake of something

like this? I mean there's been a lot of unity and I've seen that. I feel

like there's been a sort of permission for people to start

attacking others. Whereas I didn't see if before. -- it before. My

Facebook is full of people just attacking each other. That's just on

social media. I'm not talking about being out in the public, just people

yelling at you. I don't want to go out because my parents are afraid I

will have to hear that I wouldn't have had to. The best way to deal

with that is to make sure we don't have another terrorist attack. We

need to deal with what causes these things to happen. Can I come in

here? I think it feels to me like over the last 20 years in this

country we've had a lot of politicians pandering to rhetoric

around migration. We've allowed the debate to go way too far in One

Direction. When I think we reached a low point in the referendum, I'd

like David to address this, when Nigel Farage stood in front of that

breaking point poster with pictures of Syrian refugees, which had a

remarkable similar rarity to Nazi propaganda, that was abominable. I

would like David to condemn that. This is a poster, it was about

immigration. It's a real picture. It was in the Guardian in October 2015,

I believe. People have real concerns about the level of immigration that

we've had over the last 20 years. Do you not think - I will finish, if

you'd let me, you asked me a question. We need to address the

rapid mass immigration that we've had over the years of Blair, Brown,

Cameron and May which is far, far higher than it was before. People

are concerned about the effects on integration in our country. People

are also concerned about the effects it's having on housing, and on our

public services, on our hospitals being overstretched. Schools and so

on. People do want it to be brought back into balance. So, the blaming

of migrants - Not blaming migrants at all. Please get it right. The

blaming of migrants is a cover up for policy failure. We've had

successive governments - You've said it again. I'm not blaming migrants.

Have not invested in the NHS, our public services, have given us the

lie of austerity independent return they say it's the migrants to blame

for the housing crisis. It's the migrants to blame for the pressure

on Social Services. That's a lie. We need to call that out as much as we

need to call out the racism. APPLAUSE

Many people are worried because we have had three attacks in three

months. If we can hear from Giles who lost a Fred in the Manchester --

friend in the Manchester attack. Who do you trust to keep you safe and

what do you feel needs to be done? There's a common thread that most

politicians here are missing, that we're not looking at a religious

issue here as such. What we're looking at a criminal one. I think

that we need to look at methods going forward, whether that be more

policemen and women in our communities, monitoring the things

that are going on, but there are resources in place to put forward

threats and issues that are going forward. I need to ask the

politicians here for young people as well to not make this issue about

extremism in the sense of it being an inherent part of Islam, but to

look at it as a criminal thing as well. What would make you feel safe

going about your day-to-day business? I suppose more police

presence is something that has definitely helped here in

Manchester, seeing so many police forces out protecting us is

something that visually helps. But equally more work done amongst

politicians to work together to find a common solution that isn't looking

for divisive politics. That's the way forward. Nadhim Zahawi from the

Conservatives, under Theresa May as Home Secretary, there was a 20% cut

in police funding, 20,000 fewer police officers on the streets,

fewer armed officers compared to last year. So how can people trust

you to keep them safe? So on, as you saw on the programme on the clip

earlier, so the 2015 police budget was protected - But that came after

five years of deep cuts. That was on your programme, I'm not disputing

that. But on counter-terrorism the police asked for more funding, we

delivered that. On cyber another 1. 9 billion is going into cyber

security. I think the lady at the front mentioned what's happening on

social media and so on, and your very good point about the criminal

aspect to this. What Theresa May wants to do is work with other

countries to get to a place where our security agencies and Security

Services can work with the online platforms so that we can have a way

where your information is secure and you can talk to your friends and

everyone else in a secure place but those people who are using those

safe places can't use them any more. We need to make sure there are no

safe places on the internet for these people. That's a big area that

we want to focus on as well. We want to look at legislation, if you know

someone is about to be ram cried how do you bring them back away from

that -- radicalised. How do you deport those who shouldn't be here

in the first place? Those are the sort of thangs we want to look at if

we are back in Government after Thursday. Kate Forbes from the SNP.

The police force is devolved in Scotland so it's within the

competence of the Scottish Government. We have been maintaining

our police numbers over the last few years. Ultimately cuts are a

political choice. That's why in the aftermath of the atrocities and the

hearts of everybody in Scotland is with in Manchester and has been with

Manchester over the last two weeks. There are questions to be asked

about where we are best to deploy our resources. We believe that law

enforcement, at every stage of the process, needs to have the resources

to do their job properly. We have legislation there, but they need

resources. In Scotland we have made the decision over the last, the SNP

has been in Government since 2007, to increase the number of police on

the beat as it were. And to make sure that we have the resources we

need, so in the aftermath of the atrocities, whilst we were very

grateful for the offer of the armed forces to come in and patrol our

streets, we did not need to call on that resource. We were able - we had

enough capacity within the police force to do that. Fflur Elin? Plaid

Cymru would like to see policing devolved to Wales, so we can keep

our community safe in Wales. What we also do need to do is prevent

extremism of all forms from happening, so that we can tackle

this and investing in youth services, in community services, so

we are promoting community cohesion rather than division, it's crucial.

Politicians have such a responsibility here, when you have a

public platform not to target individuals or target a specific

religion. By doing that, we are increasing the division and hate

within our communities and within society and we have to be so

careful. We also need to look at how we are combatting extremism. The

Prevent agenda, currently run by the Conservatives, many people say they

are feeling targeted (inaudible) If people are targeted that is not

going to promote community cohesion. That is not going to help to bring

people who maybe feeling isolated back into community. We have to

leave it there. Our audience here tonight has been selected by an

independent external organisation to ensure all parties have fair

representation. Now we will hear from people around the UK as well

tonight, because Nick is looking at what people have been saying on

social media. Yes, I may be up in the cheap seats,

but I'm armed with question and queries from you. You guys have been

using the hashtag BBC debate all day to rant, rage and to raise concerns.

I want to pick up on a point that was made on the floor, about the

nervousness and anxiousness on the streets at the moment. Luke says:

"Having raised then lowered the threat level, London was hit by an

attack. Does this mean that security is underfunded? Josh has tweeted us.

He says, "Our Security Services should receive more funding to allow

for better digital protection." That's something Theresa May has

been mentioning this week. Sharon says, "Deport and detain anyone on

the terrorism list." John raises a question that a lot of people have

been talking about, "Should all our police be armed? With events in

London and here in Manchester, it's no surprise that security has moved

up the election agenda. You guys say the NHS is still a massive issue

too. Be it nursing bursaries or waiting lists, you've been sharing

your stories like Ellie, who says, "We should be working to maintain

the phenomenal NHS service, rather than trying to destroy it." I'd be

interested to hear what the parties have to say about that. Well,

doctors, nurses, hospitals, mental health services is what we're

talking about next. The future for the NHS.

We spent more on health than ever before. In fact, 30 p out of every

?1 that the Government spends on services goes on health, yet the NHS

is still struggling. Why? Well, we're getting older and we're living

longer. 13 years longer in fact than since the NHS was formed. Older

people cost more to look after. Caring for the average 85-year-old

costs six times as much as a 25-year-old. But there are other

factors too. We're getting fatter and new drugs are getting more

expensive. Then, there's social care. Cuts to local services for the

elderly mean more are ending up in A for treatment. That puts more

pressure on hospitals. Although like we said at the start, NHS spending

is at record levels, year on year increases in that spending are at an

historic low. Let's get your views on the NHS and

health. I'm a pharmacy student. So as a pharmacy graduate I'll be

working for the NHS next year and hopefully many more years to come. I

believe the NHS is a great asset to our country and I'm very excited to

be part of the workforce. However, reading about the recent pay rise

cuts in the media and the increasing pressures on NHS staff,

unfortunately, I've had to think about other ways that my future,

other things that I've had to do in the future in terms of my career.

One of them was looking at working abroad, because obviously, the pay

is a lot better and pressure on staff is a lot less. I know amongst

other health care students, this is a current theme that they're

thinking about doing. So my question is: How would you ensure that the

NHS remains attractive for future generations to work for? Sarah

Champion, Labour. This is genuinely the biggest problem that we have at

the moment. All of us, all the parties here are coming out with

different figures of how much we're going to invest in the NHS and

social care. Just to say that Labour has the biggest figure, but it's

still a drop in the ocean. The Greens do! It's still a drop in the

ocean, all the independent people are saying what we need is more

investment than we're able to financially commitment. What Labour

is looking at is as well as putting the money is, we're looking at

overhauling the service. We're looking to make sure staff are both

recognised, respected and rewarded. Not demonised as they have been in

the last couple of years. We're looking at how we can integrate

social care and the NHS so that both of them have parity. To be quite

honest, if you go into hospital for an operation, and you can't get home

again because there's no-one in the community nursing to take care of

you or there's no health worker to come and take care of you, you get

stuck in hospital, which is the worst place for you and then

bed-blocking begins. We're looking at very actively, I mean, Labour

created the NHS. We're still incredibly proud of it. We're

looking at making sure that we get back down to the 18 weeks to have

your appointment to have your operation. We're looking at getting

back to four hours wait in A We do that by radically trying to

rethink. We do that by talking to the staff. We do that by having an

independent regulatory body that looks at the budgeting and that

makes the right decisions for the NHS, whether that's, you'll know

community pharmacy is being cut to the bone, whether that's negotiating

the best deals on the price of the drugs we get and to be quite honest,

unless we take the politics out of this and get really grown up, we're

not going to have an NHS left. The one thing that we're particularly

passionate about, I'd love to hear your views on this, the Tories are

going for something called the Naler report looking at selling off land

and assets for the NHS. We paid into this. We created this. We own this.

It should be us, the population of the UK that makes the decisions

about what we do with our NHS, not just the politicians.

You promise a large amount of money, how will Labour paver that? We pay

our taxes and we have a pot of money and we base projections on the

figures the government are using at the moment and we have made specific

recommendations and one is the top 5% earners in the country will pain

5% more and the rest of us won't and we are -- will pay 5% more. We are

looking at getting corporation tax back to the levels it was before.

The Tories brought it down to 19% and we are looking at putting it

back up to 26%. We need to invest in our country. The Conservative Party?

That sounds reasonable until I tell you that when we dropped corporation

tax from 28 down to 19% we brought ?7 billion more into the Exchequer.

Labour obsessed about tax rates and we care about what comes into the

Exchequer so we can spend it on the NHS. You need a strong economy to

have a strong NHS. Your leader, political hero, Hugo Chavez,

Venezuela, it floats on a lake of oil and has the oil reserves after

Arabia but today it is bankrupt because like your leader, Hugo

Chavez promised everything to everyone. Today if you are sick in

Venezuela you are dead because there is no medicine. There is nothing

moral or decent about crashing and economy. When you tell people you

will raise corporation tax you have to tell them it does not raise them

any more money. The IFS looked at your figures and said you will not

raise that money, money, where will it come from? The question put to

you. You must be honest. You have not provided costings in your

manifesto. Where will you get money from? We will put 10 billion in and

an extra two billion and we are committing another 8 billion by 20

22. You need a strong economy. Hang on. I want to hear from you, you

have been nodding furiously. Can we get a microphone? Tell me why you

are nodding? I am nodding because it makes sense because how can you

spend money you do not have? Young people are burdened with debt,

student debt, house prices are astronomical. Labour want to borrow

even more money and who will pay that back? My generation will have

to pay those debts back will stop why borrow more when we have to pay

it back? APPLAUSE We have been very clear.

You have not been cleared. Diane Abbott cannot add her sums up. Can I

answer? We have been clear we are not looking at borrowing unless it

is for capital investment. We are looking at making sure we are

completely within our means on the spending on revenue spending and we

have had that independently verified. The only figures in the

Tory manifesto of the page numbers. Why will you deal with corporation

tax when it will ring in less money? -- bring in less money. The IFS

said... (INAUDIBLE). The only figures in the Tory manifesto of the

page numbers. Rather than thinking about going in to support the NHS

you are thinking about looking overseas. We are promising to lift

the pay cap for public sector workers including people working for

the NHS, which is capped at the moment up 1% and we want wages to

increase in line with inflation. In terms of funding the NHS, there is

an interim measure, and we promise to put an extra six William pounds a

year by putting 1p on everybody's rate of income tax. 1% extra. You

might think why should everybody pay for that? It means the top 50% of

earners will pay 95% of that money. It is a progressive way of doing it.

We are being honest. We cannot keep borrowing, it has to be paid for and

we think it is worth paying for. I'd interim measure until we get an

independent body to say this is the amount of money each year the NHS

has and then you have a debate in Parliament and the Parliament either

agrees with that body and there will be a separate line in your tax

return saying this is the money going to the NHS and social care,

and that is the way sustainable long-term plan we have to fund the

NHS and social care. Some of that funding is going towards mental

health and you want to legalise cannabis, as a party, some forms of

which have been linked to mental health. Is that problematic?

Cannabis gives a small proportion of people with a propensity to

schizophrenia, to trigger it. It is a small proportion of people. We

have been the champions of mental health. Norman Lamb in the coalition

was the champion of mental health and we got the Tories through

greater parity between physical and mental health. We introduced waiting

times for mental health that never existed before. As far as this extra

6 billion is concerned we want to earmark 1 billion for improvement in

mental health. And to improve GP services because we know by spending

money on those issues we get the best return on that investment by

investing in those things. Let's hear from more of you. I am Sophie,

a student living in Manchester. Mental health has been publicised

recently and is more spoken about. I have dealt with mental-health

problems from a young age and found out 50% of disorders are established

by 14 and it is an issue in children and needs to be addressed at a

younger age. What would you do to increase awareness for younger

children, and how would you improve interventions in the NHS to make it

more available to get help at a younger age? It is not focused as

much on children at the moment, it is more older generation. I think it

needs a focus on young children. The 11.4 billion putting into mental

health if you can identify it early enough, every school will get

support to identify if there are mental health issues with children

because if you identify it early enough and treat it, you prevent it

from becoming a bigger problem. Promising 10,000 new mental health

staff in mental health services, 6700 have been cut since 2010. We

say in the manifesto we will invest another billion on top of the 11.4

billion into mental health and look at the Mental Health Act to ensure

legislation is fit for purpose as well as getting people back into

work. Our target is 1 million people with disabilities, whether they are

mental health issues, or physical, back into... Jonathan Bartley, what

with the Green Party do? We would have parity in the NHS with mental

health. To take up the issue more broadly. In schools, we are creating

children who are effectively economic units to compete in a

global marketplace, testing them to death and we need a better education

system where we allow children not to be subjected to that rigour. I

took a Stabbeds test. I think I got 97%!

APPLAUSE But the stress was huge. The issue

of stress and mental health is something we have to address and I

am astonished to hear you talk about the Conservative government's

record. When you look at social services and employment support

allowance, these are people the government act sets are too sick or

disabled to work at the moment yet they have just put in a cut of 30%

for new claimants in the work-related activity group, people

the government act sets are too sick or disabled to work. We know people

are committing suicide because of sanctions to do with benefits,

primarily who are mentally ill. It is despicable. Unless we have this

conversation about it it will go on and on. I cannot accept the

platitudes around mental health from this government. We need parity of

esteem for physical and mental health and social care. Something we

all agree on across the political spectrum. I heard on reality from

the main parties. Labour seems to have a magic money tree that does

not exist. Jeremy Corbyn comes out like Santa Claus saying I am going

to do this, but there is no money to do all of these things. The

Conservatives talk about a strong economy but they are cutting the NHS

to the bone. ?11 billion, we know where we will get it from. We will

get it from Brexit, from not paying the EU membership fees, 10 billion a

year, and we will cut the overseas development budget back to the

useful part and not spending money on giving to countries for space

programmes and nuclear weapons rather than spending it at home on

hospitals, investing in doctors and nurses. We will be able to give out

bursaries to nurses and midwives and we will be able to pay back student

fees with students studying medicine, so if you study medicine,

pharmacy, science, you will get your fees paid back. If you work in the

NHS for ten years after graduating. I think that is a good deal we will

give. I am a student nurse and basically I wanted to say I no

tuition fees are paid for by the NHS that nurses and midwives get, but I

don't get the same amount of money in terms of loans and grants, and I

am constantly having to cut it fine with how much I am getting to spend

with my rent and living costs and also touching on mental health, I

have suffered mental-health problems and not only is it me suffering from

these, because of the nature of my degree course and colleagues I

worked with, it is strenuous and it can be something that takes a toll

and I have to pay for my own medication and so do other people in

our generation. I want to know what you think about mental health,

especially student midwives and nurses because we do not have the

money to support ourselves. If we work for the NHS, what if the NHS

will eventually be privatised, it is said, what if that happens and there

is no NHS to work in for the ten years and then get the money back

and have this repaid? It will not be privatised by Ukip. We will fund

bursaries for nurses and midwives. We are not going to privatise it. We

will give bursaries to you. Going back to the original question when

we were in coalition be earmarked 25 million for children's mental health

services every year and the reality is we know the money is not getting

through to the front line to deliver services. You raised the issue would

bursaries, which this government has now stopped. It is a ridiculous

thing to do. We will reinstate those things. Why is it ridiculous? We are

seeing lots of EU nurses and midwives already going back to

continental Europe because they are uncertain about the future because

of Brexit, so it is a ridiculous time to do it and we would reinstate

it. I have suffered from clinical depression. I know what it is like.

I am not only passionate about this, for me it is personal. At election

time a lot of people talk about supporting mental health and it goes

back to reviewing people'srecords and to raise awareness we need to

fund it and put the money where it is most important. In Scotland under

the SNP we were one of the first governments to establish a minister

for mental health and we have doubled the number of places for

child psychologists, going back to the point of putting the money where

it is most critical, from a young age, and making sure there is

support. It comes back to the idea of everything being integrated, so

education, health care, we have integrated health and social care so

there is not the same extent of bed blocking because we are able to

support people at the point they come into contact with social care

and the health service and there is streamlined support so when they ask

for help they are not left hanging for a long time before they get

help. Health is devolved. You have the

power to give nurses a pay rise and get rid of that 1% cap, why haven't

you? You're right that health is devolved. Our overall budget is

still set by Westminster. We're seeing cuts under the Conservatives

in all the other areas of competences, we're also seeing cuts

to the Scottish budget itself. We made the decision that in order to

protect jobs, we had to maintain this cap. In our recent manifesto we

said we will reconsider it and ensure that nurses and doctors are

paid in line with inflation. Plaid Cymru want to deal with problems in

the NHS. You're right staff are feeling pressure. That's why we want

to train an extra thousand doors, and 500 nurses half of which will

work in our communities over the next ten years. We want a long-term

approach. On mental health, Plaid Cymru secured an addition 20 million

for mental health support in Wales by being an effective Opposition.

It's not enough to just identify problems. We have to be teaching

children about mental health because we all have mental health and

sometimes it will be better and sometimes worse, just like with our

physical health. We need to teach people about mental health so that

when we're feeling poorly, then we have to resource support for it. In

Wales some people receive treatment, because of poor funding in health

support have to travel to England to receive their support. That's

actually really problematic. If you want to transition home, you want to

do that slowly, one night at home, back in, two nights at home, it's

very difficult to do that when you're travelling across miles and

miles and hours and hours. We want to continue investing in mental

health support. Continue investing in our NHS. And on making savings.

We want to integrate social care into the NHS so that we have a

social care and NHS system working effectively together. Because

firstly, without good social care, you know, people are going to not be

able to row cover. -- recover. It's putting strain on the GPs and

hospitals. That's why it's crucial they are broad together. For

patients' dignity and to have good care, it's crucial we have good care

in the communities and again, people can have that transition from

hospital into good community care and back. We should say when we talk

about health being devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern

Ireland, we're talking about the powers for health being decided by

the governments there and not by MPs in the House of Commons. What can

you tell us about the NHS, lots of numbers? We're hearing a lot about

mental health. It's difficult to establish how much is spent on

mental health, because there is no specific budget and because of the

way the NHS works, it's commissioned in different ways by different

bodies. It's warning saying though the Conservatives and Labour have

both promised more money for the NHS, they haven't specified how much

of that will go on mental health. What we can look at is staffing

levels. Back to 2010, we see the number of specific mental health

specialist nurses has fallen by around 6,500 from 45,000 or so in

2010 to almost 39,000 last year. In terms of psychiatric doctors, there

are around 8,500 specific psychiatric specialists in England.

They've fallen by a smaller number, around 23, between 2010 and last

year. That's an idea of the level of staffing in England only for mental

health specialists. Nick what's happening online? Let's stick with

the NHS just for a moment. It's something that everybody has

experience of. Everyone can relate to. First of all, Emily has tweeted

us, "My biggest concern is the recruitment of mental health nurses

after cutting the burstery." We'll return to that in a second. "My mum

has worked in the NHS for 25 years. I think the wage allocation and

outsourcing to agency ises wrong." Another one says, we can't fund the

NHS without a strong economy. But can we have a strong economy without

a healthy population? Let's return to that issue of bursaries. I spend

half my time at UNNy then I work as a nurse. The Tories have cut loans

and bursaries. You guys are often called generation rent, group of

people who will struggle to buy their own home. Housing is another

big issue. We've had Alesha get in touch, "Excessive rent and a lack of

affordable house aring ruining the lives of young people." I think

there's going to be strong views in the audience on this one.

Yes, buying and renting a house is something people here are very keen

to talk about too. Homeownership has dropped to its

lowest level in more than 20 years. Why? Well, for starters, the cost of

buying a house in the UK has never been higher. On average it's going

to cost you ?215,000. It's cheaper in the north-east and way more

expensive in London. 20 years ago the average house would have cost

around three-and-a-half times your yearly salary. Now it's

seven-and-a-half times. If the cost of your lunch had gone up at a

similar rate, a roast chicken would now cost 5 is quid and a loaf of --

51 quid and a loaf of bred would be a fiver. If you do have the cash

there aren't enough houses. Last year 170,000 were built, quite a way

short of what's needed. Then there's renting. 4. 5 million properties in

England are rented. One million more than at the start of the decade.

Those are the reasons why homeownership has dropped to its

lowest level in more than 20 years. OK, let's hear your thoughts on

housing and renting. Hello, my name's Daniel. I'm 24, from

Manchester. I live with my girlfriend and two children. We are

renting at the moment. We'd like to buy somewhere. I'm wondering what

each party is going to do in terms of helping young families like

myself be able to afford to get onto the property ladder? Anyone over

here? Yeah. My name's Arif. I'm 23. University student. The average

deposit in this country for a first-time buyer is ?32,000. That's

more than double what it was just ten years ago in 2007. My generation

are having to buy their first homes much later in life. And have their

mortgages longer for sometimes 35 years compared to what your

generation had. What realistic solutions are you going to implement

in order to bring a radical change to this problem? OK. I'm 20 and from

Manchester. I go out around Manchester quite often. I can see

the amount of homelessness increasing drastically. I've

realised that a lot of the parties are offering more housing, but my

question is - how are you going to cap or maybe abolish foreign

investors that are looking to invest and you know bias etc which they

already have where we have our own people like on spice, I'm sure

you're aware of spice, the drug and how you can, you know, just

prioritise our own people rather than rich foreign investors. Lady

down here. My name's Georgia. I'm 23. I'm from Cambridge but I live in

Leeds. Most of the political parties have pledged to tackle the housing

crisis, but similar promises were made in the last election. The

Tories have failed quite spectacularly to meet the number of

houses they've promised every year. We've heard from older voters that

young people have it easier, more opportunities. But I can't sell my

iPhone to buy a new house. I'd like to know what the politicians here

this evening are going to do to address the UK's housing shortage.

Now both Conservative, Labour governments coalition have

consectively failed to build enough houses. What are you going to do?

First of all, please don't hate me, my first house cost ?33,000, which

you're saying is the average deposit. I can't actually imagine

how you look at having a home of your own. I think that's one of the

saddest things because to have that security of something that's yours,

whether it's a long-term secured rent, whether that's a council house

or somewhere you buy. I mean that's a fundamental human thing to do. The

flip of that is seeing the homeless levels rise and knowing that's to do

with Government choices around pay, around accessibility, around bidding

houses. What Labour is looking to do is basically, fundamentally build

more houses. It's also about getting young people so that they have the

skills to build those houses. It's then about having a million new

houses over a five-year period and making sure that half of those go

into social housing, so whether that's with Housing Associations or

with councils, so that they're there. They're secure and they're an

asset of this country. It's also about making sure that you have

landlords who are honourable. Because the level of rent increases

is ridiculous. We're going to make sure that's capped to innation.

We're going to make sure that -- inflation. We're going to make sure

that landlords have to provide a safe home so that all the checks are

done for you. We're going to have to try and also make sure that just

getting rid of tenants, when they don't want them or to get more

people in and bigger deposits, that's got to stop. We will bring in

legislation to make sure that stops. Again, with everything that Labour's

proposing, what we're trying do is think big, think how we can help

everybody have a secure home and help the economy by putting those

skills and the money back in the country. The final thing talking

about foreign investors. If people want to invest in this country,

fantastic, we'll take their money. But we want to make sure that they

do invest in this country because they are using our roads. They'll be

using our education and benefitting from the economy that we want to see

growing. Nadhim Zahawi, Conservatives. In the short-term,

help to buy has helped about 350,000 families to bridge that gap in terms

of the deposit. You can probably pay the monthly payments on the mortgage

but it's the capital needed to put down the down payment. In the longer

term, I think that your point, we pledge to build a million homes by

2020. We're running at froxly 189,000 -- approximately 190

thousand at the moment. We will target by 2020. We will add another

half a million by 2022. We want to work with councils and Housing

Associations so we build more council housing and if people live

in those houses for 15 years they can have a right to buy those.

That's a good thing to do, to own your home. To your point, about

homelessness, there's a brilliant colleague of ours, I think both

parties support him Bob Blackman, shout out to

Bob. He delivered the home isness bill that went through Parliament

and had cross-party support. The Government supported it. The

Conservative Party in their manifesto have pledged to cut home

isness by half in the next five years. You do accept it's gone up

under your Government? We can deliver on that pledge.

What do you make this afternoon? I understand what he's saying. I've

seen that initiative myself. Even still, sometimes the amount that you

still have to put down it can be quite strenuous. We struggle to get

that much funds together. I don't think that initiative itself is -

Can I answer that quickly. Forgive me. Have you looked at shared

ownership as well? That's another thing to look at where you pay part

rent and then eventually end up sharing the ownership, Housing

Associations in my area do a lot of that. They operate in other areas.

It's worth looking at as well. More of your stories. Hello. My name's

Sammy Jo, I'm from Manchester and I'm 25. Since I was 16, I've saved

and done the right thing. Got a help to buy ISA. I've got the opportunity

to buy a house and something that's concerned me is one of the party

idea from the Labour Party in terms of changing chasm, which could see

it -- council tax, which could see it triple. I know some other party

leaders are thinking of this idea. I can now afford it, but is my council

tax now unaffordable. I just want to, I just want some - I just want a

clarification from you as parties that I can afford it? The garden

tax. That's an absolute out-and-out lie. I think the Tories are

outrageous. It's in your manifesto. To be putting lies in there. It's in

your manifesto. We are not having a garden tax. It is nonsense. Let's

hear from the Green Party. What would you do to solve the housing

crisis? I think Tariq touched on this. We feel that none of the other

parties are facing up to the real issue. Yes, there is an issue of

supply. When you look at the 2011 census, we have a 140 million rooms

in this country for 65 million people. We have more bedrooms per

head of population than we've had at any time in our history. That's kind

of puzzling. What's going on here? What we have a broken housing

market, where housing has been turned into a speculative commodity.

With know buy to let investors and foreign investors are coming in and

driving up prices. When you have something like help to buy, all it

is doing is helping out developers, who say thank you very much that

gives us another chance to put up prices further. We have to get rid

of the subsidies. We subsidise the buy to let market by 6 at ?3 billion

a year. -- 6. 5 billion a year. You can lend against that, lift the cap

against local authorities and then the housing is built and paid

through Housing Benefit or private rental. You can put not just rent

controls like rent caps, like Labour want to, do but that will only cap

the increases in rents. But rent controls allow prices to be

stabilised and in some cases brought down if you give the powers to local

authorities. There is so much we can do. The problem is the political

will to take on those investors who are pushing up the price of housing

and making housing into commodities and not homes.

APPLAUSE What do you make of what you are

hearing from the politicians about housing? I think a lot of what has

been said is positive in terms of building more council houses. Some

of the reforms in the 80s could have been damaging to the market in a

sense we have given private companies, the onus is on private

companies to build houses that are often smaller and worse quality than

the houses built by local authorities. It is making it much

harder for young people to really access the property market. Hearing

about support for local authorities and housing associations to extend

their remit and perhaps start building houses again, start being

properly in charge of their town planning, it can only be a good

thing. Ukip, David Kurten. In 1996, the average cost of the house was

about three times the average salary. They were affordable. Now it

is 8-10 times the cost of an average salary. The housing market has got

out of balance. It is an issue of supply and demand. We hear from all

the parties we are going to build more houses than we have at the

moment, about 150,000 a year is the amount built over the last 20 years.

It will not happen this time, it has not happened the last 20 years, it

will not happen again. The reason it is out of balance is because of a

huge population increase, mostly due to rapid net immigration. There has

been 4 million net immigration since 1997 stop those people need to be

housed and that has driven up demand without bringing the supply in and

the supply is not going to come. In Ukip we have a policy of bringing

immigration act into balance. It will take 20 years to get the

housing market back into balance because it has taken 20 years to get

it out of balance. If we don't, the population of the country will be 80

million by 2050, and there are simply not enough homes for 80

million by 20 50. We have to be honest and Ukip are and we will deal

with it. Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats. We have to be honest and

stop blaming immigration for everything.

APPLAUSE What we are planning to do is to

promise 300,000 new homes a year, if the private sector, which the Tories

rely on, does not deliver that, the government must directly commission

housing where it is needed to make sure we get to that level. In terms

of people who cannot afford a deposit, we have a scheme called

Rent to By. You rent a property from a housing association and pay market

rent, but, gradually, by paying rent, you build up a share in that

property. At the end of 30 years, it when you are just paying the rent,

you will own the property. If you want to move you will take whatever

you have built up in terms of deposit when you move. It is as if

you are renting, at market rent, but because it is a housing association,

the property will be yours in 30 years. Hello. I'm 19 years old. How

do you feel about housing and renting? I was homeless at the age

of 17 for a year and after that year I was phoned to ask if I wanted to

stay on the housing list for homelessness. There was no

communication or that year. I want to know what is going to change. I

live in mid Wales. Plaid Cymru? Plaid Cymru want to build 10,000 new

affordable houses over the next ten years and we want to make owning and

running a household more affordable and create a Welsh energy company to

allow us to use Welsh natural resources to bring down the cost of

energy across Wales and we want to scrap the necessary bedroom tax and

we want to scrap letting agency fees so it is cheaper to rent. The

Scottish National Party. If we make it simple we need three things. More

supply, the right houses and we need good jobs that pay well. We need

more houses. It comes back to looking at what parties' records

are, not what they say now in a campaign. Over the last parliament

in Scotland, the SNP exceeded the target of building 30,000 affordable

homes and buy affordable I mean houses that reflects what people are

earning, what the average earnings are in the area, which can be a

variety of homes, it can be social rent, council houses, shared equity

but to make sure there is an increase in supply of affordable

homes are also looking, while housing is devolved, there are

policies made at Westminster that have a negative effect in Scotland.

Since 2013 the SNP government has spent about 400 million trying to

mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax and we are disturbed to see the

scrapping of housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds which will have a

negative effect on people in Scotland in need of housing support.

We are building more and the right types of houses but we need help

from Westminster. Jonathan, housing is a big issue for young people. You

are working with BBC Reality Check. Just to clear up a disagreement is

not long ago between Labour and Conservatives about what the Tories

call the garden tax in the Labour manifesto, Labour proposes a

consultation on what to do about council tax and business rates,

which are paid by small businesses and council tax is what we pay on

the houses we own or rent. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says it

makes more sense for business rates and council tax but we should bear

in mind the last time council tax was reviewed in 1991, when

everything was worth less than now. Calling it a garden tax could be

controversial because council taxes based on the value of the property

including the land around it, so the tax is already on the value of the

land and home. Thank you. A reminder, the audience tonight has

been selected by an independent external organisation to ensure all

parties have fair representation. What is coming in on #BBCDebate?

This is an issue that always riles you when we talk about it on

Newsbeat. This person says so many people want to move out they cannot

afford it and there is nowhere for them to move to. The next,

anonymous, although I suspect it is from Sammy Jo, can someone tell me

why my council tax goes up? I cannot see what has changed. We know it

will be hard to afford a house without a job and you have told us

the job market is tough. Josh has been in touch. He says people think

we want everything handed to us, we don't, we want access to it. And Joe

says, is austerity working when the deficit has not been reduced by that

much and wages have not gone up? Thank you. Finding a job, being paid

enough and making sure your contract is fair is what we will deal with

next. The number of jobs in the UK is at a

record level. The highest since records began in 1971. Unemployment

is at its lowest level in 40 years and youth unemployment is down. When

you put it together, it sounds pretty good. But let's take a closer

look. 3.5 million people working here are not from the UK. Almost 1

million people on zero-hours contracts, which do not guarantee

any work whatsoever and disproportionately affect 16 to

24-year-olds. And just because you have a job does not mean you are

rich. One in eight workers living in poverty. And a warning that this

year's wages will not keep up with prices. Hello. I am Jack, 22, and

studying for a Masters in Manchester. The government has made

a lot of the fact unemployment has gone down which seems great on the

surface, but what you fail to mention is a lot of these jobs are

insecure, zero-hours contracts, part of the gig economy, or, worst of

all, exploitative apprenticeships in things like customer service for

Asda, and one for sandwich artistry for Subway. It is a hand-out to

corporations to give them a workforce they can employ in minimum

wage jobs and give them no skills. How do you plan to tackle these

exploitative apprenticeships? APPLAUSE

OK. I am 21, from Glasgow. I finished a government funded

apprenticeship but I am recently unemployed. The question, what will

you do to create more jobs? What were you doing? Digital marketing.

IT and Administration. It was more of a sales role, on the phone

speaking to customers. What were you paid? Was it useful? I

learned about being in the workforce and being responsible. In terms of

going from that, and I was told it would be high ability, I did not

come into employment after it. I learned a lot but the way it is made

out like a stepping stone to get into work, that is not always the

case. Kate Forbes, SNP. If you wanted an example of how austerity

has not worked in the last seven years, youth employment is a good

place to start. The Conservatives like to say they are looking after

the economy and meeting targets but they have failed to do that and so

the economy has not grown at the extent it should have. Austerity has

kept the economy back, which means you do not have the same job

creation. It is not just about people in employment, it is about

what they are paid. The SNP feel strongly people should be paid a

fair wage, they should be paid the real living wage, not the rebranded

living wage. The cut-off should not be aged 25. Why should somebody aged

26 and a different ways from somebody aged 24 doing the same job?

We have said we are committed to raising the minimum wage in line

with the real living wage so it is over ?10 over the next Parliamentary

term. It comes back to ending austerity and ensuring people have

money they can spend, so there is more money going around the economy,

which means the economy grows and we are more productive. Nadhim Zahawi.,

Conservatives. More people are in work, but a lot of the work is low

paid, low hours, insecure and disproportionately affecting young

people when it comes to zero-hours contracts. We would introduce the

national living wage, the Conservative Chancellor did that at

?7 50 and we pledge to increase it to 60% of median wage to continue to

go up with inflation. I spent a year as the apprenticeship adviser. We

are putting half a per cent of the wage bill of a large corporation,

any company with a wage bill of ?3 million, half a per cent is taken in

the apprenticeship levy, to deliver ?3 billion of investment into

apprenticeships. When I looked at this, the American 's said can we

look at what you have done? We delivered 2 million apprenticeships

in the five years when David Cameron was Prime Minister and set a target

of 3 million this Parliament. We were doing something good. It can

always get better. Apprenticeships are something that our pioneering, a

teaching assistant can become a teacher on a degree apprenticeship.

And be paid as well as getting the degree apprenticeship. When you look

at Germany, one of the insights I took is that in Germany, businesses

were embedded in the education system so that every child had

exposure to both the opportunity of going to university, or going on an

apprenticeship. The system was stable and I am glad, labour worked

with us on the apprenticeship levy and supported it. On zero-hours

contracts, which you mentioned, the problem with the zero-hours

contracts when we came into office and employer can say you are on this

contract and you are exclusive to me and you have to sit at home and wait

until I win game. We changed legislation to say it should be

equal. If you want me to give you my time I should be able to go to

three, four employers. It was the Liberal Democrats in coalition. You

will have your chance to speak. Relax. We introduce the idea that

the employee can decide to have three, four contracts with different

employers and they can choose. There was an interesting (INAUDIBLE). They

offered all 30 hours contracts employees to go on a permanent

contract. Said we do not want to, we'd prefer the flexibility, whether

they were students, whatever reason, they wanted flexibility. You have to

be careful before we tar a section of the workforce by saying they are

all bad. People sometimes preferred that, especially if they are

studying and want to work certain hours. Brian Paddick, Liberal

Democrats. 40% who do zero-hours contracts want to continue but we

want to make sure that it is not used as a way of exploiting people.

If people are working regular hours there should be a legal right that

those people to move on to fix contract rather than zero hours. I

am afraid taking the minimum wage and recalling it the living wage

does not make it a living wage. Has anyone here had a zero hours

contract? OK. Let's get some microphones to you. My name's

Rachel. I'm from Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. I am on a

zero-hours contract. My company calls it a relief contract, just

because it's not as scary. But I'm a youth worker for my local authority.

As Kate has previously mentioned, my budget comes from my local

authority, which comes from Holyrood, which comes from

Westminster. Now, if there are more cuts made to the budget, my job's on

the firing line. We've been extremely lucky in Highland that

we've had our internal budgets cut which I can't believe I'm saying

this, only means that the proinjects that I do with young people are

being cut. My job is not on the line yet. My job involves working with

young people and giving them the bench mark to their future. If our

budgets are being cut in Westminster, and that path follows

me to the Highland council, how on earth am I going to prepare the ye.

Generation of young people, the next generation of your electorate to be

skilled for the jobs of five years' time? Who else is on a zero-hours

contract? Hi. I've been on one since I was 17. I've always really enjoyed

being on it because it gives me flexibility. What do you do? I work

in retail and do promo jobs as withle. I think the -- as well. I

think the question should be about what the minimum wage should be in

terms of long-term contracts. I've finished uni. How am I expecting to

get a job when some are paying 16,000 a year, how can I pay for

?800 rent a month. It should be focussed on the minimum wage rather

than zero hours contracts. Sarah Champion, Labour, zero hours

contract work for this lady you want to ban them. We want to ban

exploitive ones. We don't think it's fair. We think everybody deserves a

proper living wage start agent ?10 from the age of 18, because to be

quite honest, prices of a loaf of bread or a bus fare are the same if

you're 18 or 28. It's also taking it back a step. So we want to get

apprenticeships, good quality apprenticeships on a par with

university degrees, when as at the moment they seem to be drifting and

there's a stigma associated with apprenticeships, which is nonsense.

Businesses are crying out for well trained people. What we'll do which

is a really big thing, scrap tuition fees. To come out of a degree with

?40,000 debt is crazy. What we'll be looking at doing is finally getting

rid of the gender pay gap. I do not understand why it helps anyone and

definitely our economy when a woman is earning on average 18% less than

a man doing the same job. We've had Labour brought in legislation around

equal pay in 1970, and we're still at an 18% pay gap. What we'll look

at doing is getting a national investment fund. We'll have banks,

regionally so that small businesses, particularly can go to that and grow

their business to bring in more employment in the area. But what

we're looking for, particularly, is that high earning jobs rather than

just about doing jobs. So 3% of GDP will go on research and development.

That's what we're seeing as the fastest way to grow our economy.

APPLAUSE Any more questions about jobs? Just

a quick one to Sarah, following that point. You mentioned it being crazy

that students are coming out with #40?,000 worth of - ?40,000 worth of

debt. Labour in power if it was so crazy, why didn't you make the

change when you were in Government? We brought in ?1,000 as opposed to

?9,000. And then trebled it. There's a big difference between a

contribution and ?9,000. He's right you trebled it. There's a brilliant

piece - Yeah. In terms of your policy, you want it to go to

completely free. If that was your ideology now. Why has it changed ten

years ago, back in let's say 2007, you still had ?3,000 roughly tuition

fees and maintenance fees. If you're so against students having debt, why

ten years ago, when you were last in power, why didn't you abolish it

then? I've only been here four years. What we're doing now is

looking at what changes we need for the future. I'm good, but I can't

change history I'm afraid. I think it's time to get a reality check.

I'm glad you said that. Going back to your point about McDonald's

asking people on zero hours contracts if they wanted to

transfer, they D as with other corporate employers, they do find

that zero hours contracts work for a lot of people. Let's remember

there's multinationals companies concerned about their corporate

image and may play by the rules that other employers may seek to get

round. It's worth highlighting the difference between the national

living wage, we've heard a lot about it, 7. 7. ?7.50 an hour for over

25s. If you're under 25 you can expect a lot less, anything from 7.

05 down to 3. 50 an hour, if you're on an apprenticeship, you're more

Lykinsly to get. Under -- likely to get. Under 25s are at a disadvantage

when it comes to earning a minimum wage. An idea of how many people are

on it, KPMG, the global accounting firm, looked at this in 2006, and

found out that just over 20% of people in the UK were paid less than

the voluntary living wage, which is 8. ?8.45 outside of London. We don't

have much time left. I know a lot of you want to talk about Brexit. I'm

Ricoh Smith, I'm 18 years old. 17. 4 million people voted to leave the

European Union last year. March this year, Theresa May triggered Article

50 taking the stance of a hard Brexit, account woman be trusted - I

want to know from the politicians who can truly deliver a Brexit that

is a hard Brexit? Nadhim Zahawi, can Theresa May be trusted with Brexit?

Yes, she can. I don't think there's a thing as a hard or soft Brexit.

There's a good Brexit. What Theresa May - It's all very basic. We hear

good deal, bad deal. It's base being, what does it -- basic, what

does it mean? Theresa May set out her 12 points for the negotiation.

She gave an important speech at Lancaster House a few months ago.

Controlling our borders, making sure that we have the best trade deal

possible with our European partners. We remain European. We're just

coming out of the EU institutions. We have to keep it brief, because we

don't have much time left. We need to get round all the parties to be

fair. The important thing is making sure we have a trade deal that works

for the UK and for Europe. We cooperate and make sure that we

deliver the defence and security for Europe and we have 140,000 workers

for example in our NHS who are European. We have to secure them and

Brits living in Europe. Labour is very clear that we want to maintain

an incredibly strong partnership with Europe. We're very aware of the

terms of that are going to be changing. We cannot be going into

this all bluster, throwing the baby out with the bath water. What we

need to look at is workers' rights, environmental protections and

security as well as forming a really strong trading relationship. To the

gentleman there, you're right, we need to get out and we need to get

out in a timely fashion. What I do worry about Theresa May's speech,

some of it was good. But she seemed to indicate that we might have

transitional arrangements in many areas for an unlimited and

unspecified number of years. People voted to come out. We want our

fishing waters back. We want to control our borders. We want to come

out of the single market. We want to do it in as quick a time as

possible. We need to get on with it. Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrats.

What we say is we don't know what the final deal is going to be. Who

is it, once we know what the final deal is, who is it who should decide

whether that is an acceptable deal or not? Should it be politicians or

should it be you? We think you should decide. We think that we

should stay in the single market because that's going to be best for

the economy. It's going to be best for jobs. It's going to be - if you

want to go and move to Europe, if you want to go and work there, if

you want to fall in love with somebody from the European Union,

then you have got to have free movement and that's what we stand

for. Kate Forbes, SNP? We respect across the UK a majority voted to

leave the EU. But in Scotland 62% voted to remain. Over the last year

Nicola Sturgeon put forward compromise solutions in a way to

recognise the majority vote to leave but also Scotland's position in

voting to remain. All those proposals and discussions have been

soundly rejected and so we're now in a position of saying, well, once we

know the deal, whenever that might be over the next two years, we will

give people in Scotland the opportunity to choose between a hard

Brexit, that doesn't take into account Scotland's interests, and

independence in the EU. Jonathan Bartley? We want a ratification

referendum. We will fight for environmental rights, freedom of

movement, I'm passionate about freedom of movement and the next

generation having those benefits, when I had in my generation. It's

not fair to short change the next generation and take away those

freedoms, those rights that we've enjoyed. This generation is getting

short changed enough as it is. It's saddled with private dead from the

public sector. It's not getting the opportunities and jobs we want. We

should have a say for them in the final deal. Clan clap Plaid Cymru? I

think -- APPLAUSE

You say there's no such thing as a hard Brexit, Wales has 200,000 jobs

with tariff free trading with the single market. In Wales we have some

of the poorest areas in Europe, when we're looking at GDP. A good deal

with the European Union is absolutely crucial for the people of

Wales. What Plaid Cymru want is a mandate from the people of Wales to

go to Westminster, to put Wales on the political agenda and make sure

that our voice is heard in those negotiations. Let's get a few more

closing thoughts on Brexit from you guys. Brexit has a significant

impact in terms of education. I want to know from the parties in terms of

like how will they address that and support education, because the

Brexit makes it more difficult to utilise resources internationally.

Students gaining funding, but still studying in the UK? How do you feel

about Brexit? Lied like to return to the point about workers' rights that

Sarah Champion made. Going forward with negotiations about the human

rights bill that's something that LGBT persons in society look towards

to work, live and marry those we love. Heading forward I want it to

be really important to both parties, in whatever negotiations they do,

that those rights must be affirmed and upheld in a society that is

often changing. Thank you very much. A few closing

comments from online. Yes, whoever is in charge come the

end of the week, they will have to deal with that almost straight away.

As we've seen tonight, there are lots of views still. Here's a

couple. James says, "When will people realise this election is for

the best Brexit not for a future Government? Then Richard, "The 48%

of us who voted to Remain are being forgotten. The whole referendum was

a mess." Tonight's debate has been quite well behaved, but Craig with a

parting thought, "What about a new campaign rule where you can't bad

mouth other parties? The insults arive relevant." Back to you.

This has been Newsbeat with the final debate, a big thank you to our

guests tonight and to all the audience here in Manchester. If

there is anything that you still want to get your head around in the

last day before the election, then you should really do a search for

BBC reality check. From all of us here, in Manchester, good night.