Sunak refuses to accept tax burden will definitely rise during next parliament – general election TV Q&A live | General election 2024

The next question is from someone working in the NHS.

Q: Staff are burnt out. I have experienced being left eight hours on a stretcher in A&E. How will you restore the NHS?

Sunak says he is sorry to hear about the questioner’s experience. He comes from an NHs family, he says. His dad was a doctor and his mum was a pharmacist. He says the NHS does not train enough staff. Now it has a long-term workforce plan.

A woman in the audience intervenes. She says the NHS is short of staff. Creating new hubs won’t help, she says.

Sunak says the government is recruiting more members of staff too.

And he says he disagrees with the questioner. Doing things in hubs outside hospital can improve the service, he says.

Sunak takes questions from audience

Q: You were once popular. Can you tell us something that might make people like you again?

Sunak says people think he has a healthy diet. But he eats a lot of sugar – lots of haribos and Twixes. He is not sure if that will make people like him, but it is something about him, he says.

Sunak refuses to accept tax burden will definitely rise over course of next parliament

Q: People voted for Brexit to control immigration?

Yes, says Sunak.

Rigby quotes net migration figures – 9 million in the last three years, but much, much less in the three years to Brexit.

Sunak says the numbers are too high. But he is starting to bring them down, he says. The government is on track to halve net migration in a year’s time, he says. He lists measures that have affected this.

Q: What will the legal cap on migration be?

Sunak does not answer that.

Rigby quotes Sunak’s predecessors all saying they would bring immigration down.

Q: Why should anyone believe what you are saying?

That prompts a round of applause.

Sunak says he is bringing net migration down.

Rigby asks about small boats.

She says numbers are up 40% this year.

Sunak says that is because of one new country, Vietnam, accounting for new arrivals.

Q: Will flights leave in July?

Yes, says Sunak.

Q: How many people will go?

Sunak says the first flight will leave on 24 July.

There will be regular flights.

He does not give details of the numbers. But he says there will be a deterrent.

Q: If you were so confident flights would take off, why did you call an election first?

Sunak says his priority was economic stability. With economic stability established, he felt it was right to give people a choice.

On immigration there is a choice, he says.

Rigby asks about Sunak’s five priorities.

Sunak says bringing down inflation was the most important one. It was 11% when he took power. Now it is back to normal.

There is some shouting from the audience. Sunak says of course he knows things are difficult.

Q: Debt is going up?

Sunak says it has gone up, but is forecast to go down.

There is some laughing from the audience.

He says, when he made the announcement, he made it clear that when he meant was putting debt on a path to fall.

Q: Waiting lists have gone up.

Sunak accepts that. He says he has been clear about that. But now it is coming down. ro

He refers to the question from the doctor earlier.

Rigby suggests he is blaming the doctors.

There is some booing.

Rigby points out that, when he made the pledge, there was industrial action.

It is now going up.

Rigby says she may not have been brilliant at maths, but 7.5m is higher than 7.2m.

(That is the line Keir Starmer used in the ITV debate last week.)

Q: Under the Tories it has been turmoil. How do we know that, if you are elected, you will still be PM in a year’s time?

Sunak ignores the thrust of the question, and says the government has come through a difficult time.

Q: Many people see the Truss premiership as the symbol of Tory chaos?

Sunak says he argued against Truss in the leadership campaign.

Sunak says he felt ‘incredibly sad’ to have upset people with D-day snub

Starmer’s peformance – snap verdict

The next question asks what Labour will do for young people.

Starmer says he understands the challengers the questioner was setting out. He listens, he says. He uses his ears, he indicates. He asks people what change they want to see, he says.

And he thinks young people need good, high-skilled jobs.

And he wants to make it easier for people to build their own home, he says.

Rigby says they are out of time.

The next questioner says he liked Starmer when he was elected, but feels he has turned into a “political robot”. He asks how Starmer can win his vote?

Starmer talks about his commitment to service again, and his time running the CPS.

Q: Do you think you have changed?

Starmer says he thinks he has become “much clearer in my own mind that the country must come first and the party and party politics second”.

The questioner says Starmer does not seem to be answering the question. He suggests he is answering like a lawyer.

The next question is about dentistry, from a woman who has waited a year to get on an NHS dentist’s list.

Starmer says this is a huge problem. Some areas are deserts for NHS dental care.

Labour would fund 700,000 urgent NHS dental appointments and incentivise dentists to set up as NHS dentists.

He talks about being genuinely shocked being told that for 7 to 10 year olds dental problems are the main reason for hospital admission.

Q: Do you use a private dentist?

Starmer says his family is registered with an NHS dentist, but as an adult he does not qualify, he says.

The next question comes from someone who says he sends his daughter to a private school, but would have to stop that if VAT is put on fees. Will the government reconsider?

Starmer says he has nothing against private schools. People who use them want the best for their children. But parents who send their children to state schools want the best for them too.

He says too many children in state schools do not get the teaching they need. That can affect them for life.

So Labour would recruit more teachers, he says.

He says Rishi Sunak wants every child to learn maths until they are 18. He says some schools don’t have the right teachers for maths up to 16.

The next question comes from a doctor who says he earns more working part-time than he does as a newly-qualified doctor. What will Labour do about that?

Starmer says he has been frustrated by how long the strikes have gone on. He says Labour would get in the room and negotiate.

Q: Would you pay them more?

Starmer says they are asking for 35%. He does not think government can pay that.

But he would negotiate on pay, progression, conditions.

The government shuold not have allowed this to run for so long, he says.

He says “almost everything is now in a worse state than when they started in government”. He does not know when that has happened before.