Metro.co.uk asks your questions at our six party General Election debate 2024

Hello and welcome to the first ever Metro election hostings in 2024. We have been sent in lots and lots of questions from Metro readers over the past few days via social media comments and e-mail and we are about to put them two candidates from the six main parties who are gunning for Westminster on July the 4th. So we are joined with David Simmons who was elected as the MP for Roy, Slip, Northwood and Penner in 2019. We have waste treating the shadow health secretary and the running as a candidate for Ilford N. We have the Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper, a candidate for Saint Albans. We have Zac Polanski, the deputy leader of the Green Party. We have Alex Wilson, who is currently a member of the London Assembly, is running also for Ilford North. And we have Ian Blackford, the ex Westminster leader for the SNP, who is standing down at this election. We'll we'll do a quick icebreaker to start everyone off. One of the main sort of points of reference that people in politics have for the past few years, for better or for worse, is Liz Trussy's lettuce. That seems to be where people's mind goes. People's minds go when when they think about politics. What would you do to make sure you don't end up in your own lettuce video? So we're going to, we're going to lay out the ground rules. First of all, I'll give you a question. We'll give you 60 seconds to answer it. There could be follow up questions. There'll be chances to respond if people accuse you of anything. So that's fine. We'll start this time with Zach, the Greens, and then we'll just work our way along there and then work our way along here. So that's OK. So Zach, yes, tell me, what would you do to make sure that you don't end up as the next lettuce of all the questions and the entire campaign? This is getting to the political root of where we are right now. The way I would make sure that I don't end up as as that, I think it's about being credible. It's about making sure that you're engaging with your lecture that you're also, I feel like I'm giving a serious answer to a silly question, but I don't think there is a silly answer other than make sure that you stay refrigerated, make sure you stay cool on a hot day like this and just keep going and make sure you get more green MPs. That's it. Thank you very much. And Alex, what a what a question. Again, try not to have to give a bit of a serious answer to it. And that, as you said, being incredible and being honest and being open about what you believe in, what you stand for, being true to your values and thinking round corners. And that's one thing I think that Liz Trust failed to do. A lot of what she was trying to do had the right instinct behind it. And I'm sure when we get to talk about these subjects later on, we'll discuss that. But I think her and her entire administration was very kind of blind and wasn't able to think of about consequences. Great, Andy. Ian, I think been able to think logically. But I mean, I can remember very clearly that Friday morning where her chancellor came with his financial statement and it was watching a car crash. But there's a serious point out of all of that because the financial markets crashed, interest rates skyrocketed. And we're living with the consequences of that today for so many millions of people, so many millions of people that face higher mortgage rates and the fact that people yet are still to renegotiate. So the problems that she created are with us for the long term. But you know, when it comes to thinking strategically on these issues, if I may, there is one issue out of this that we have a broken mortgage market. Most countries in Europe and indeed in North America have the situation that when you take out a mortgage that is for a lifetime that you're not exposed to financial risk. So this trust expose so many millions of people to financial risk, but we actually need to make sure that we protect people and nobody has sought to put in places the policies to make that happen. That came in at 56 seconds, Ian. That was very impressive. Well done. Sure, for me. We've done, David, if you want to take over a lot in politics is about timing. I think one of Liz Tress big challenges was that interest rates were rising across the world in response to what happened in the US. Stock markets were beginning to fall and she chose to embark upon a very brave, quite well thought out but badly timed policy initiative that was about getting the economy growing. I think what we need to learn from that is that if we look back to people who did that really successfully, like Margaret Thatcher, they spent years and years laying the groundwork, figuring out what was necessary in the markets, in the business world to make sure that that growth agenda was delivered. And that's what we need to do in the next Parliament. Incidentally, David, do you know why no one from the government was able to come along today? I'm here from the governing party and it's a pleasure to be here. We are a team. OK, great ways on you go don't crash the economy, I think is the fundamental answer as to how not to end up being caricatured as a lettuce. But I think David has just helpfully spelled out the risk of another five years of Conservative government. They think Liz's trust was just bad luck, bad timing rather than bad judgement. And that's why they're about to do it all over again if they get an unprecedented fifth term. Their manifesto contains 10s of billions of pounds of unfunded commitments. This is Liz's trust on steroids and and frankly they haven't had enough scrutiny at this election because people have written off the Conservatives so they can appear on the BBC and other broadcasters and they get asked about the politics of the day rather than their plans for the future. This is an enormous risk. There are millions of votes yet to be cast in this election and you only get change if you vote for it. And I think David has just confirmed that the nightmare on Downing St. of Rishi Sunnat walking back in will be Liz Truss on steroids. And that's too big a risk for families across the country. And Daisy Cooper finally, well, Liz Trust blew a hole in the public finances. She sent mortgages and rent spiralling and leaving everybody and the next generation to pay the price. If I'm going to be a little bit cheeky about lettuces, what I would say is hopefully, you know, politicians, politicians will have a lettuce moment. But if we want to have more lettuces in this country, that's our home grown, we should invest £1 billion into our farmers and make sure they can grow local lettuces and give free school meals to children so they can eat them at lunch. That is the epidemic stunt we're crying out every day in a field of lettuces that look like Liz Truss talking about childhood hunger. We can make it happen. There's still a week of the campaign left. Yeah, it can definitely happen. Right. OK, let's move on to our first proper question of the of the day. This one came in from Joe. It's on healthcare, quite specific healthcare, but feel free to wax the little about all the all the different plans that your party has on this. But the specific question that Joe had that you sent in, everyone in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get free prescriptions. In England we don't why? I'll start with, since we've got the shadow health secretary here, Wes Streeting, could you start us off, please? Yeah, I'm simply, we've got devolution in this country and devolved governments are able to make different decisions. And that's something Labour's proud of as a legacy. You won't find that in our manifesto at this election, because in our in our manifesto, we're only making promises that we are 100% sure we could keep and that the country can afford. And the priorities we've chosen in in the NHS at this election are 40,000 more appointments every week to cut waiting lists, doubling the number of scanners so we diagnose earlier and treat faster. As a cancer survivor, I know how important that is. Thirdly, to make sure that we deliver mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country, as well as walk in mental health hubs in every community. And eight and a half thousand more mental health workers so we can cut waiting lists for more than a million people waiting for mental health treatment. We've committed to 700,000 more NHS dentistry appointments as the first step to rebuilding NHS dentistry while we do the fundamental contract reform that's needed. And we're committed to training up thousands more GPS and cutting through the red tape so we bring back the family doctor. That's great, thank you very much. Labour. Labour brought in the free prescriptions in Wales. Why? Why wouldn't Labour bring in free prescriptions in England as well, just to bring it into light? At this stage it's a question about priorities and choices. And I make no bones about the fact there are lots of good ideas that were put to us for our manifesto that are not in the manifesto because for two reasons. Firstly, money is tight in the country. Reference back to Liz Trust and my earlier answer. And secondly, if there's one thing that's an even shorter supply in our politics at the moment, the money, it's trust. And so every single policy in our manifesto is a promise that we can keep and the country can afford. Of course we would like to go further. I hope we'll be able to go further if we get the economy growing. But we've been so careful to make sure that every single policy on our manifesto is a promise that we can keep and a promise that you can afford. And that has meant making some choices. Daisy Cooper Free prescriptions. So Liberal Democrats have a long standing commitment to extend free prescriptions to everybody with a long term mental health condition. And we, I think we've committed to reviewing the prescription charges, so not to scrap them, but to review them certainly because the prescription charges are horribly out of date. The last time it was reviewed was years and years and years ago. So we would conduct that review. But one of the major problems facing people right now is they can't even get to see a GP or a dentist to even get a prescription. And one of the reasons why Liberal Democrats are so focused on our pledges to boost GP numbers by 8000, to guarantee an appointment within seven days or 24 hours if it's urgent, is because we know that if somebody can access the care they need as soon as they need it, it's better for health outcomes and it's better for the taxpayer. And at the moment, because people can't see AGP, they can't see a dentist, they can't see a mental health practitioner and there isn't any social care. They all end up in hospital, in the back of an ambulance, in A&E, suffering from the community of corridor care. The way to tackle that crisis in the middle of our middle of our NHS is to invest upstream in our GPS, in our dentists, with mental health hubs in every community, mental health practitioners in every school and free personal care. That big investment upstream in our community care would really help to solve people's problems, to give them healthcare when they need it and to save taxpayers money. Thank you very much Deely. Zack, on to you. Yes, and the problem's much wider than this, though. And Wes said this is about choices, and he's correct. But let's look at the choices that both the Conservative Party and, let's face it, the future Labour government, the Conservatives are toast that they're going to make on the National Health Service. We need to make sure that our National Health Service stays nationalized and it's already started to be privatized over the last few years. And the words that we hear from Wes show that he is going to open the doors to more privatization. There's a conspiracy of silence between the two big old parties on this. They talk about what a crisis there is in the National Health Service and they're right about that, but they think moving small pots of money around is going to be the answer here. The Green Party of the party, they're going to be honest to say we need about £50 billion for our National Health Service, a huge amount of money. The question is how do you pay for it? Well, you look to multi millionaires and billionaires, just a 1% tax on people with assets of over £10 million or more or a 2% tax on people of a billion pounds or more is bringing some of that money in along with other tax reform. Ultimately our National Health Service needs to be defended and the Green Party of a party with Green MPs who will every single day protect our National Health Service. Great, thank you. And Wes, are you opening the door to privatisation? No, no, not at all. Look, I've said unashamedly that we do want to hold the door open for Britain's life sciences and medtech sector to come up with the new treatments and new technologies that will mean that people have better health outcomes and healthier life expectancy. I know some people on the left bleat about that, somewhat ironically on Elon Musk's platform. But I think that is a sensible thing to do, both the future of our health service and the future of our economy and our life sciences sector. And when it comes to using spare capacity in the private sector to bring down NHS waiting list, absolutely. Because the alternative we see opening before our eyes, those who can afford it pay to go private, those who can't, left behind. And my left wing principles are about making sure that everyone, whatever their background, has fast access to healthcare. So we will use that spare capacity and give it to people on NHS terms, free at the point of use while we rebuild the capacity, the staff, the equipment, the technology that the NHS needs to make sure that it is always there for all of us when we need it. That is both the principal thing to do and the pragmatic thing to do. Great, thanks. Moving on to Alex, free prescriptions in England. Thank you. Well, on the initial question of of free prescriptions, I think it's, it's a lot easier for the devolved administrations in in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to, to do certain things like that when they effectively have a greater degree of spending per head of population, you know, largely funded by the English taxpayer. But we'll brush over that on the wider question of of NHS capacity and reform and delivery. Yeah, I think I'm in danger of agreeing with Wes here and he probably doesn't want me to but because that's probably doesn't help him. But, but I think what does matter is outcomes, not processes. And what matters if you're waiting for an operation or you need an appointment or you need treatment of any kind, it matters that you get that treatment as quickly as you possibly can. And that is why it is important to embrace the use of the independent sector where relevant, where appropriate, whilst always remaining free at the point of delivery for individual patients and, and the care that they they receive. So we in reform, we, we would embrace the independent sector, use that as a way of that capacity to help tackle the backlogs, get the waiting list down, but also in boosting recruitment and retention of existing NHS staff. We would look to have zero rated basic rate of income tax for all frontline health and social care workers for three years to help people stay in the in the NHS and again, help tackle that backlog, get things back on, on track and then see where we go after that. Thank you very much. No, obviously, Ian, a different question to you. Because pre pre prescriptions are reality in in Scotland, why not introduce charges to prescriptions since the NHS is is struggling so much? Yeah, I mean, I can remember the debate that we had prior to bringing in free prescriptions in Scotland and the evidence was that there were too many working people who were having to make very difficult choices as to whether or not they could afford their medication. That was the simple reason to do this, to make sure that people could get the medication that they needed. And I would have thought that today in England, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, it's even more important that people have got access to medication when they need it. But there's an issue here about principles and about values, because it's not just about prescription charges. Rosie mentioned free personal care. Well, guess what? We have that in Scotland. Sorry, Daisy. Sorry Daisy, my apologies. We, we, we have free personal care in Scotland. We also don't have tuition fees because we think it's important that people should have the ability to receive further and higher education without financial impediment. We've taken the choices at the higher rate to increase tax so that we've got additional resources to invest in our public services. We generate an additional 1 1/2 billion pounds. But if I may say so, the one thing that's really been missing from this election campaign is how we deliver economic growth because all of us on this platform, I would suspect, want to see higher investment in our public services. But the question is how. And what we really need to consider is how we've actually failed to deliver sustainable economic growth, right, since the financial crisis in the United Kingdom and the sharp disparity in performance. Let me give you 1 statistic I just looked up this morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Index in the US has risen by 336% since the financial crash. The FTSE 100 is 113% over that same period. In a way, that's a reflection on that lack of ability to generate economic growth. And that's where the challenge and the opportunity is. And maybe we'll explore that a bit later. All right, thank you and on to you, David Simmons. Finally, thank you. I think voters are very worried about this issue. They look at Wales, they hear Starmer say this is the model for how the Labour Party would run the NHS in England. And they noticed that in a nation of 3 million people, there are more people on long term waiting lists, including my sister, than there are in the whole of England, despite the fact that Wales has £1.20 to spend for every 1 LB the NHS has available in England. So ultimately this is about choices. If you choose, as Labour in Wales have done, to let your health boards languish in special measures for years. If you're wasting money on bureaucracy, that is not the case in England, then you will have a worse performing service. And I worked in the NHS and for last Labour government. I agree with Wes's point. It was a good thing that the Labour government introduced private services into the NHS to improve patient access and to reduce waiting lists. I think it's right that the Conservative government has carried on that and it's a feature of every high performing health system in the whole world. But voters need to think to themselves, when Wes says this manifesto is not the full extent of our plans, what is coming down the track if we just need to get to the extent of the English NHS being worse performing but with 20% more money, what level of tax rises are we going to see just to pay for that? Thank you. Cheers. OK, right. Let's move on to our next topic, which is social care. We had Stephanie who messaged in saying will any of the parties commit to stopping caterers on Universal Credit having their money taken as working benefit? Just for a bit of context, Universal Credit payment is reduced by an amount that's equal to the caterers allowance payment, although UC might be boosted if you're caring for someone who gets a disability related benefit. So Lib Dems say that they've put social care at the heart of their manifesto. So I'll let Daisy kick off for us. On you go. A direct answer to that question is yes. We would end the appalling scandal of unpaid carers working hard, caring for their loved ones, earning just a few pence or a few pounds too much, and then being penalized with thousands and thousands of thousands of pounds by way of a penalty. It is. The government has been warned about this for years. They knew they had to fix it and they didn't. And we have said that we would stop it from happening. So that's a direct yes to that particular question. But you're right, we Liberal Democrats have been talking about social care, and we think we're the only party that's talking very seriously about the social care. Social care is important in its own right, but it's also important because you can't fix the NHS unless you fix social care. So we've made a very big, bold pledge to introduce free personal care for every older person and disabled adult who needs it. We've said we would introduce a higher minimum wage, 2 lbs higher than an existing minimum wage for care workers so that we can attract carers back into the profession and recruit more into the profession as well. We would introduce the Royal College of Care Workers so that care workers, care workers have a strong voice on the national stage, always speaking up for them, talking to government about their needs and about the changes in care and in the care sector that will inevitably come down the line. We've talked about increasing the carers allowance for all of these unpaid carers who do a fantastic job and improving rights for kinship carers as WellCare really is at the heart of our manifesto. For Ed Davey. It's personal. For many of us in the Liberal Democrats, it's also personal, but for us, it's a political priority. And we want every single government to commit to cross party talks immediately after the general election. Thank you very much. Moving on to Zach. On you go. Yeah, care is absolutely a priority for the Green Party. Ultimately, this is about who we are as a country. Are we going to be compassionate and are we going to make sure that people are looked after in their direct need, or are we actually going to say there's no money left or we're going to put the capacity in the private sector, which is taking capacity from the National Health Service and putting more burden on it? My partner works in palliative care in a Hospice and talks often about the situations you see where people have cared for people, sometimes for a long period of time with no money, and often this burden falls to women. If we want to talk about economic growth, it makes absolutely no sense that all of these jobs are happening across society. They're absolutely not contributing towards economic growth in terms of if you look after someone. If I look after someone in my family who needs care, that's not a job. But if I hire someone to do it, that then becomes a job. We absolutely need to look holistically as systems change, thinking about social care, because ultimately this comes back to the question about National Health Service. If we don't look at prevention, if we don't look at caring after vulnerable or any adults, then ultimately that will create further problems along the line. As a country, we should put the money forward to make sure that all carriers have free personal care. And specifically about Universal Credit. Yes, absolutely. And we also want to look at a 40 LB Universal Credit at Lyft as well. It's outrageous what people are having to live on in this country. We talk about a cost of living crisis. It's not a crisis. A crisis is short and it's a sharp shock. This has been going on for a long time. How long does it have to go on for before we stop saying the word crisis? This is about inequality. It's about a pandemic where multi millionaires and billionaires made more money than anyone, whereas those caring and those who are the most vulnerable are absolutely struggling to put food on the table and heat in their homes. That's a disgusting situation. That's 14 years of Conservative government, but it's a future Labour government who are not pledging to change that and that's shameful right Alex would reform commit to stopping caterers on Universal Credit having no money taken his working benefit on on this precise point of the question the the sort of technical point I I honestly, I'm going to be honest I don't know the answer to that and what our party would would do on that. But on the wider point about social care, it's an issue which is, is extremely important to me personally having and a few years ago gone through this whole situation with my father. We're currently going through a very similar situation with my father-in-law. He is still at home at the moment, but will not be for much longer. And we're trying to find somewhere suitable for him to, to, to go to, to, you know, see how the rest of his day is. But it, the, the impact that it has on the families and, you know, particularly unpaid carers working extremely, extremely hard. Very shortly after I was elected to the London Assembly, I had a meeting with a representative from Carers UK and I want to keep that discussion ongoing. I've also met with Marie Curie and you know, it's an issue which I say I don't know exactly what our party's line is on it, but it's something that I'm personally very interested in and want to help influence that line. Also my role on the assembly, I'm on the health committee and, and last week we set our work program for this coming year and directly thanks to my intervention, I managed to get social care added as a topic for investigation. So OK, I'm not in the same position as being the next health secretary, but it is something that I am very, very keen to, to do something about whilst say on that specific point, I haven't got the answer yet, but it's something I want to work towards. OK, great. And Ian Blackford, this is a devolved matter. I believe the carers allowance and Universal Credit is, I couldn't find this online. Is the carer support payment, is that deducted from Universal Credit? And could you also just tell us about the SNP social care? Well yeah, of course certain elements are devolved and some aren't. And so when it comes to the allowance, then yes, that is deducted through Universal Credit because that is reserved. That's the element that we can't fix. But it's very much the, the ethos of our government. Everything that we do is on the basis of, of eradicating poverty. And it's, it's about how a number of different policies, the number of different government agencies come together. So for example, if I look at the child payment that we are making, which is made to 326,000 children, 26 lbs a week, which has meant that 100,000 children, I'm sorry, 100,000 children are less, are in poverty in Scotland as a consequence of all of that. Also, you know, when you, when you talk about the national living wage, of course we have to discriminate between the national living wage and the real living wage. And the Scottish Government has as an absolute priority to make sure that all our partners, all the agencies that we interface with are paying that living wage. When I, the area I represented in the Highlands, many of the care homes are either in the hands of the National Health Service or the local authority and they are all paid that living wage. But we need to go beyond that and think about how we give people dignity their old age and retirement knows it needs support. So one of the things when was working across the agency and delivering, for example, was a care home village in poetry and what was my home island of Sky. So you need to think about all of these things, about how we give people dignity, how we give them the financial support. But think about when I came into politics in the 1970s, there was a report written called Born to Fail. There was an English version, there was a Scottish version. Many of the challenges that were highlighted in that report by David Player in the 1970s are still here. It has to be a priority for every government to put in place policies to eradicate poverty. Thank you very much. And David, would would you commit to stopping caterers and Universal Credit from having the money taken as working benefits? A lot of benefits have a taper system. So if you shift, earn a significant amount from work, you lose some of the benefit. And I think we need to look at whether we've got the balance right in respect of this one, because we want to encourage everybody to be able to access work. But clearly if that means that they're losing out and it's having an impact on their care and responsibilities, we need to look at that more broadly. We know if we look at our care system, just under one in five of us, we'll need to get the support of the care system at some point during the whole course of our life. We know our children's social care system in England is amongst the highest performing in the world. We know that there are some issues around, particularly adults with learning disabilities. And you'll have seen the government focusing on how in particular it can support disabled people who want to work additional hours or take on more responsibilities to get the skills to do that as part of training up people in the UK to access the jobs that are available. And when it comes to the K and particularly frail elderly people who are very significantly growing part of our population, it's the reason why more than half of the working visas that are issued are for people who are coming to the UK to work in our health and care sector. So the government has made this a priority. But clearly in the long term we're going to need to change in particular our approach to housing, respect the fact that we don't just need to think about housing numbers, we need to think about the housing supply. What kind of homes do we need to support people who need long term care? We need to build on the expertise local authorities have, their proven track record of doing it and make sure that that leadership can create the kind of social care market and system in which everybody can thrive. Great. OK. And Wes Streeting, would a Labour government stop carers allowance being deducted from Universal Credit? Well, our first steps on social care would be to deal with the workforce challenge where we don't pay enough and so we struggle to recruit and retain the care workers we need. And that's why we would introduced the first ever fair pay agreement for staff in social care and also work to build care as a care profession that's regarded, respected and paid as such. Because I think the work that people working in care do is hard, highly skilled, difficult work, and I think it should be regarded as professional. We'll introduce national standards so that wherever you live, you're entitled to the same quality of care. And we'll also deal with the scourge of delayed discharges where, you know, just up the road at Saint Mary's in Paddington where I was recently, we had someone in there who'd been there I think for 60 days, well enough to be discharged, but without the care in the community to receive them. That's thousands of pounds every day for one patient. We could have spent a fraction of that on high quality care in the community, which would have been better for that patient, but also better value for taxpayers money too. The fun thing I'd say just on on on the welfare changes and, and the whole sweep of issues we need to look at for carers in particular. What I want to do is to bring all government departments together to look at how they can support carers, because this goes beyond DHSE department for work and pensions, but it also applies elsewhere too. And Days is right about the need for cross party talks and and consensus because whereas I'd say with the NHS, Labour has a proud record, the shortest waiting times, the highest patient satisfaction in history. We did it before with your support, we'll do it again. On social care, this is one of those issues where there is plenty of blame to go around. And whether it was the last Labour government, whether it was the Conservative Lib Dem coalition, the Conservatives governing alone, or indeed the SNP in Scotland where they've announced the National Care Service. But it's more branding than substance. Every single major party has failed on social care. And I think it's not a shortage of good ideas, it's a shortage of good politics. And ideally, you'd want a consensus that can survive changes of parties, changes of government. And I'd like to get together to talk about how we build that. Excellent, right. So moving on to transport, especially pertinent for Metro, we've got Umar who sent in the question, why is the cost of train tickets so expensive? And is anything being done to bring the cost of these down in due course? We've got a couple of parties that want to nationalise the railways and we've got one party that actually has nationalised the railways. So Ian Blackford, when you're on the train from Inverness to Kyle of Lochouche, are the trains any cheaper than they were when the S&P took over the the railways? The answer to that is yes, they are. And the reason is, and admittedly it's for a trial period is now we've taken away peak fares. So there's no, there's no dis benefit from travelling to to work at peak times, for example, whether you're in the Highlands or whether you're in the central belt. And I'm glad to say that we also reached an earlier resolution with the train workers in Scotland in terms of industrial action. And if I may say so, we did that in the health service as well. We didn't lose a single day in Scotland to industrial action with the health workers, in stark contrast of what has happened in in England and in Wales. So we will work with the unions, but we'll work on the basis of delivering good value services to the public. And that's exactly what we've done with the rail workers. Thank you very much. Moving on to David, why is the cost of train travel so expensive and what would you do about it? Had a huge impact on people's travel to work in particular. And that's not just seen in the rail industry, it's seen on buses, it's seen on the roads, seen on the the London tube network. So we need to make sure that it is a sustainable system for people that need it. Now government's given a lot of financial support and we see that manifesting itself in different ways. Mayor of London's using that money to reduce the cost of fears, certain days of the week to freeze bus fares. Other parts of the country using it, for example, to open up new routes where they think that there is demand. I think the long term solution lies around integration and the government's proposal for Great British Railways to make it more integrated than it's been in the past without seeking simply to create just a massive taxpayer subsidy is a big part of that. The other thing that's changing significantly is the use of AI by railway companies, the ability now to use more dynamic pricing so that if you're able to book in advance you can get a much, much cheaper ticket. Now the consequence of that of course is some of those turn up and purchase tickets have got more expensive, but it means that the travelling public who are able to plan at least a few days ahead are able to access cheaper fares. Longer term, there's going to be a bigger debate about what the future of public transport network looks like, particularly with the growth of work from home. We know across all sorts of different sectors of industry, people simply aren't traveling to work every day. That gives a huge boost to high streets in places like mine where people are spending their their money at the local coffee shop rather than Preta Monge in the city. However, it does have a big impact on the financial sustainability of public transport and that's something we're going to need to address once we've got an idea of what that looks like for the future. Whereas Labour is wanting to introduce Great British Railways. Would that bring ticket prices down? Yeah, I think it would. We already have publicly owned railways in England. The problem is that they're owned by the travelling public in European countries, whose countries have a massive stake in Britain's railways. It means that as we're, as they're accruing profits, those profits are being taken and used to invest in and subsidise the transport infrastructure on continental Europe rather than for the benefit of our own fare players. We also have enormous taxpayer subsidy of our railways in this country and we don't seem to get a great deal for it. Services are unreliable, fares are rocketing. And I think that was people's experience before the pandemic. By the way, I must have, I must have been asleep during the halcyon decade that the Conservatives were in power, before the pandemic happened, where apparently everything was sunshine and roses and everyone found that Britain was working really well. I mean, let's get real. The great thing about British Rail though, isn't it? I think the data of a nationalised system, I think we can see the improvement that's been delivered. Far too young to remember British Rail, I'm afraid. But there's a serious point, which is the that the problem isn't. It's about how the railways are actually run and managed and how you get value for taxpayer investment. And I think the we've got a really sensible, pragmatic solution which is as as franchises come up, we bring them back in house and we run them owned by and for the benefit of taxpayers and the travelling public. We allow Open Access operators like Grand Central to continue to operate. So there's a degree of private competition and I think everyone benefits from that. I think it's sensible, it's pragmatic, it's the right thing to do and will make a real difference for of taxpayers and for passengers. Just very briefly for me, because David said you give the unions what they want. No you don't. You negotiate with them. And that's what we did with the rail workers in Scotland and that's what we did with the National Health Service. And the fact that people in England and Wales have suffered from not getting access to hospitals because of strikes because the Tory government didn't take the responsibilities to negotiate, that is a disgrace and you've all paid a price for that failure. Don't know if you noticed Ian, but Penny Morden said just this week that she thinks the junior doctor strikes should have been solved by the government. She is part of I mean, if only the penny had dropped sooner that they've had plenty of time and they've run out of excuses. And I think the question is, do people just want more of the same with this clown show continuing or do they want change and that change can only come with the Labour government. I don't is there any appetite to pay a 35% pay rise, which I ended? Well, no, we've and we've and we've and we've been talking about railways. We're talking. No, we've been we've been very honest. Railways. We're talking about railways. We're talking about railways negotiate. Thank you. We're talking about railways, people, We're talking about railways. Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem manifesto promises wholesale reform of the broken fare system in the railway. What does that look like? So I've been a commuter for 12 years and boy, it can be tough. I think what commuters and passengers really want is a system where the trains are comfortable, reliable and affordable, and it almost doesn't matter what form of ownership it is, as long as it delivers for the passengers who are actually using the railways day in, day out. So the first thing that we would want to see is an immediate fare freeze because they keep going up year after year and it's really, really expensive, quite frankly, for a lot of people who have to commute in. So immediate rail fare freeze. The second thing is to accelerate the simplification of our ticketing system. You know, here in London, you want to get from one side to the other. You just tap in and you tap out bus, tube, anything else. Super easy. You leave London, you go into the Home Counties. Boy, the tickets are complicated. You can tap in one bit, but you've got to have a ticket at the other end. You can scan on your phone for one thing, but you can't somewhere else. You know, if you go one station further out, the ticket's a little bit cheaper, but only if you get a train that's two minutes after the time that the previous one was. I mean, it's so complicated. So we need to simplify the ticketing system so it's fairer, and that needs to happen as soon as possible. Great. Thank you very much, Daisy. That's great. Zach, you also. The Green Party also wants to bring real into public ownership. How would that bring ticket prices down? Yeah, and it's genuine public ownership, too. It's not. We can't tinker at the edges with this. We also need to look at the rolling stock. I think, you know, this campaign, I've travelled to so many cities by train, sometimes several cities in a day, and I've seen the state of, of, of EU KS train system and often not being able to find a seat and also the massive prices that are happening. We don't just need to look at the railways, we could look at the water too. You know, when that was privatised, Margaret Thatcher promised us this would improve the services. We literally have sewage being pumped into our rivers and sometimes the water companies are incentivised to pump sewage into our waters. Privatisation has failed and ultimately we need to make sure that people can get around who want to travel the greenest way, the cheapest way. And just to finish off, I'd widen that out to all forms of transport. I'm a London Assembly member, I love our city and in the centre of London, if you want to get around on public transport, it's pretty easy and often it is affordable. Get to zone six or seven and it starts to get much more difficult. We have a situation where it is cheaper to drive your private vehicle and pollute rather than use public transport. Even if you want to do the right thing. That's in zone six and seven. Let's get to the rural towns and villages. And this situation is completely unsustainable. Transport is 1/4 of our emissions across the country. If we really want to look at a green transition and make sure this is affordable for people, we have to incentivise and subsidise things like railway travel and our bus networks. Thank you Zack and moving on to Alex Olson. Sure. Well, as, as already been said, transport and commuting very, very important part of life in our city. When I made the decision a few years ago to so set up my own business and work from home, you know, before working from home was, was fashionable. Then a large part of that was because I, I was not really enjoying the commuting experience, the cost and the, the, the complexity and the just the kind of atmosphere of being, being, you know, sort of cooped up in that way. And, and, you know, we're not very good at delivering infrastructure in this country. And governments of, of both parties have, have been very, very bad at doing that. And that's something that we need to be much better. And probably one, one example where we've got it right is the, the, the Elizabeth line, a fantastic addition to, to London's transport infrastructure. But beyond that, whether we're talking about roads, whether we're talking about railways, I mean, HS2, look at the absolute disaster that's become, just become, you know, an absolute beer moth and, and excuse for ratcheting costs without actually achieving a great deal. I think if we're to have affordable and, you know, well connected infrastructure that will then enable tickets to be at a sensible price that people will use and, and to get people back into using those systems post pandemic, we just need to be much better at organising, planning and delivering in the 1st place. Great. OK, moving on to our next question, this one's on housing. We had Francis write in saying we hear that there's a housing shortage, but reality often suggests property is rented to tourists rather than locals. Which party will make UK local residents priority over tourist trade properties now? An investigation by The Times last year found that there were places in Devon and Cornwall where there was close to one Airbnb listing for every five residential properties, and in Coniston and Lake District it's one in four. Will your party take any action against private holiday rentals and those sorts of let's? There's only one party on this panel that has mentioned them in their manifesto, and that is the Conservatives. So I will let David start off for us. So I think this is part of a complicated picture in the housing market. So we know at the last start of the last Parliament we set out a target of a million new homes to be built, a target that we've achieved. But I mentioned in my comments earlier on the need to look at housing supply, not just housing numbers. Levelling up has been a key part of the government's agenda. So we reduce the level of demand, in particular on London and the southeast, and make sure that there are attractive jobs, good quality, access to education and things like that in other parts of the country so that people don't have to move in order to be able to further their careers. And that's really important because we know there are also parts of the country. Where there's a housing surplus. So overall in the United Kingdom there's enough homes for people to live it. So we need to think about that rebalancing of the economy. And when we look at the rise in particular of Airbnb in organizations like that, one of the things we have seen is landlords in some part of the country taking social housing, for example, off the market and then going into Airbnb because it's more profitable. And that's why in recent legislation, we've looked at both giving powers directly to local authorities where that's a concern because having a big impact on their ability to house people that are in need in a particular area. But also look at the role that the planning system will have in that. So we can ensure that homes that are coming on stream are not simply going to the highest payer in the short term, but that they're actually providing a genuine public benefit in return for the planning permission that goes with them. OK. And Wes, would you look into action against private holiday rentals and DRPB? You mentioned the southwest of England. I mean, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, Labour candidates and councillors have been campaigning very hard on this issue of second home ownership and holiday let's because we're seeing affordable homes for local people dry up. And also offseason a real impact on community services like post offices, convenience stores and just the basic social infrastructure which is important for any community. But particularly if you live in a village or small town or a rural community, that is a really big impact on your life if those services close because of, of this challenge. So I think in terms of things like, you know, more powers for local authorities to give them the freedom and flexibility absolutely in favour of devolution. That's a big driver of, of, of what we want to achieve in terms of giving more power to local communities. Believing very strongly the people are able to make better community decisions for where they live if those decisions are taken closer to them rather than in Whitehall. And then more broadly on housing, we have to be more ambitious. We've got a commitment to deliver one and a half million more homes to make home ownership more affordable, particularly for people in their 20s and 30s for whom the dream of home ownership just seems like a pipe dream at the moment, to make rents more affordable. That's partly about supply, but it's also about taking action on this terrible bidding war you see in big cities like London where you know, you see a rent advertised and people turn up and then there's locked in a bidding war and see the price spiral. We're going to put an end to that too. So we've got a good offer on housing in Labour's manifesto. This is a national priority and as well as delivering for people in terms of their experiences of renting or buying, this is also great in terms of growth, building the new homes, more jobs in the supply chains, more skilled jobs and opportunities available. It's great for the economy and part of Labour's growth plan too. Great. Thank you very much. Wes, Daisy Cooper, you were shaking your head as as David gave his answer there. What would Lib Dems do in this situation? Sure. So we often think about places like Devon and Cornwall and Cumbria where there are huge numbers of second homes that are putting pressure on the local housing market. But there are towns and cities in and around London, including St. Albans where I live, where there is a huge number of Airbnb's. And we're not talking about just a second home, we're talking about big freeholders that have 20304050 flats in a block of flats and they're all being used as Airbnb's. And there are young people who might have been able to rent that as their first flat, maybe to buy it as their first apartment. Young couples, young families, completely priced out of the local area. And we simply can't get the workforce that we need for in hospitality, in our NHS, in social care, because there's no effort that people can afford to rent or to buy because of this huge number. So we have said in our manifesto that we would give powers to local authorities so that they can regulate the number of Airbnb's and short term let's wherever they are in the country. And the reason I was shaking my head when David was speaking was because he said that the government had been looking at legislation. Well, I tabled an amendment to the Levelling Up Bill to give that power to local authorities and the Conservatives ignored it. So it could have been in place, but it isn't. David, I don't know specifics of Daisy's amendment, but I think those powers are things that are contained in the recent legislation around leasehold before. And I know one of the things we've been looking at is how we deal with that broader picture of the market. You know, we want to encourage landlords because private landlords, as we saw with the introduction of the assured short hold tenancy by Michael Heseltine in the Thatcher government, led to a huge increase in the affordable supply of homes for rent. But clearly in that market conditions have changed both in terms of level of demand and cost, and we need to look at further reforms to address those issues. OK. And Zach, on the holiday rentals. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Daisy's answer was spot on. Really. It's about the devolution to make sure that happens. And I wish that amendment had gone through. I think to look at this more systemically though, there are over a million people on a million households on waiting lists. There are not enough council homes. And this focus on housing is often about private housing, which is really code often for an affordable housing, luxury houses, executive homes. We need council homes in this country 150,000 per year. And not just council homes, they need to be built properly and sustainably. We have homes that are being built right now that will need to be retrofitted in just a couple of years. That's completely ludicrous. And actually if we insulate every single home in Britain that needs it. So the Green Party are pledging with our £29 billion pledge, which is essentially a triple win. Ultimately that means you lower bills, which is vital in the cost of living crisis. It's good for the climate, we're in a climate crisis and also it creates good green jobs that can be paid properly and be in trade unions so people have proper rights working and dignity in their working conditions. This is a green economic transformation that is waiting to happen, but to see the Labour Party in particular pledge £28 billion for the whole green transformation and then U-turn even on that is a complete betrayal of young people in this country who particularly really care about the climate crisis. It's not just young people, of course, it's anyone who cares about the future of the planet. But housing and building housing sustainably will both solve that housing crisis and is also a key to make sure we're dealing with our climate commitments. We're getting off our housing, but where's do you fancy? Yeah, look, I mean, actually we have got a commitment to insulate homes right across the country, millions of homes across the country, to make sure that we help people cut bills in the way that Zach describes. I think we've got actually really serious plan when it comes to Britain's energy security and renewable energy supply so that we can cut bills, create jobs and also make progress towards net zero. Respectfully, the difference between the Labour Party and the Green Party is we need to make sure we have a manifesto that can actually govern and deliver good government. It is very easy when you are a smaller party to make promises that you know you will never be accountable for delivering. And I just urge people to think very carefully about the fact that Zack's fallen into this kind of inevitability trap a number of Times Now with his attacks on the Labour Party of, you know, the Labour Party's won. There's a Labour government, and I'm now here as Zack, to oppose this Labour government. There isn't a Labour government. We haven't seen a Labour opposition leader walk into Downing St. for 27 years. And I can tell you from knocking on doors in every corner of this country there are millions of undecided voters. And the one Conservative attack in the otherwise abysmal campaign that is cutting through is this idea that Labour is on course for super majority. Don't give us a super majority. Make sure you vote Conservatives. So there's still an opposition and it is, I think persuading Conservative voters who've had enough of the Conservatives to think, well they've lost anyway, so we'll stay at home. There's nothing inevitable about change. You only get change if you vote for it and you can only get change with the Labour government. Thank you very much. Shouldn't be complacent about the result, right? So on housing reform, Alex, everyone else here has said that they would ban no fault of evictions. They'd bring in the Renters Reform Bill or legislation to that effect. And Reform is the only party on this panel that has said that they would abolish the Renters Reform Bill and loosen restrictions on landlords. Why? Because ultimately what we need to do is boost the overall supply of all kinds of housing. And that includes private rent, it includes market sales, it includes social rent, council housing, everything. We need more of everything and you don't get more of everything by making it more restrictive for people to enter the market and provide those those services. But when we're talking about housing crisis, there is an elephant in the room that no one else on this panel is willing to discuss. And that is if we are growing the population effectively by the size of a city of Birmingham every year, that is going to create pressure on housing. We are not going to deal with the housing crisis until we have got a grip on uncontrolled mass migration and we might talk about that later. I don't know what the next set of questions are, but that that's something that that, you know, we're the only part of this actually willing to stand up and say that is a key issue. But going back to housing more generally, as I say, we need more of everything. Where's we'll remember when I was cabinet member for planning in the London Borough of Red Bridge leading up to when was it 2013, I was sacked from the cabinet because I wanted to get in place a local plan that involved allocating certain sites for development. Because I was, I knew that, you know, we need development to happen in order for housing to be provided, in order for that crisis and those prices or say across all types and tenures to be reduced. But I was sacked for that because the Conservative administration actually didn't want to push ahead of that. And we see this from Conservative MPs right across London jumping on bandwagon, celebrating every time a major planning application is refused in their constituency. Theresa Vidya is example, the worst example of the lot. And it's all very well government saying that we wanted to deliver more houses, but you took away the compulsory element of having a housing target for each local authority. And is it any surprise then when when when the crisis doesn't get settled? So you can't trust the Conservatives deliver on this. We need an approach that will say more of everything. And part of that is make better use of public sector land. I mean, here in London, TfL, one of the largest land owners in the capital. Let's use that land and and by raising some cash from selling that, we can then feed that back into the transport system and answer the previous question about making fares more affordable and the serviceable better. Can we can we just call out that dog whistle politics? The reason we don't have enough houses in this country is because we haven't been built building the social homes that we need. That is the fundamental problem. That is the root cause of the all the other problems to do with the, the, the, the, the, the lack of short term let's, the short of long term let's the short of long term housing. It's because we haven't been building the social homes that we need. That is the problem. So please don't pursue this divisive dog whistle politics. I think it's ugly. It has no place in a debate on housing, right. And David, do you want to respond to the? So I think it's important to recognize that Labour's solution, which they put forward in their manifesto to build on the Greenbelt, is not the answer to this. If we look at the leadership that's provided by local authorities, well, Starmer's been pretty clear about it. If we look at the leadership that's been provided by local authorities, my constituency is served by two councils, both of whom exceed the housing targets they've been given. They do that not because central government are on their backs, but because they recognize that that is important for local people. So we need to make sure that when we have set out things like our million home target that we've achieved, that those targets are realistic, that they are deliverable and that we're focused on the way we deliver that supply. Not by building on the Greenbelt, but by recycling things like former industrial land, including housing sites where you might be able to fit more homes and new types of homes that are what our communities need. OK, and moving on to Ian, SNP did introduce a short term let licensing, but Shelter, the charity, said there was a drop in the ocean when it comes to Edinburgh in terms of housing. Is it working or is something else needing to be done? Yeah, many things need to be done. And when I have some sympathy with shelter, you can't look at that in isolation, but it does help. And someone who represented a rural constituency, Ross, Skye and Lochaber. I have many parts of my constituency where holiday homes are more than 50% of the housing stock. I, I don't know how many people here of, of your readers will be familiar with a place like Applecross, for example, on the the West Coast, more than 50% of the homes are holiday homes. A local inn, a fantastic inn, it can't open seven days a week because it can't get staff. So there's a real issue. So bringing in regulations on housing less is a start and being able to do that. But it's not a 111 trick pony. I mean one of the things we've done in Highlands and by the Rock and Straths Bay is we put a restriction on new housings for holiday homes. They are banned as a part of a pilot project. There are many things that we need to look to do and of course in Scotland we don't have right to buy. You cannot buy your council home. It's an absolute disgrace that the council housing stock in England is affected to such an extent by the right to buy and that should end. But you know, I, I know we need to do more, I know we need to do better. But if I look at our record and I compare and contrast with elsewhere, so since we came to power in 2007, we have built 96,000 social houses in Scotland, 37 affordable housing. We've built 40% more affordable homes ahead of population than we've done in England. There's a, there's a lack of ambition in England to deal with this crisis and there's others have said this is fundamental to economic growth and it's a disgrace that so many young people cannot get access to home, whether that's for social rent or whether that's to get onto the housing ladder. It's an absolute priority that it, that it must be, it must be tackled. We cannot have the situation that I've faced in my constituency that so many people, you can't live and stay, you end up with schools closing. This is AI have to say, this is a housing crisis. And by the way, we've got a housing bill going through the Scottish Parliament today. That will mean that you won't get no fault eviction and it won't mean that we've got rent controls in Scotland as well. So a lot of the things that have been discussed in this panel was ideas that might come forward. We're already doing, but I respect that we need to do more in Scotland, but my goodness, we're way ahead of what happens in England and Wales. Right, Thank you very much. Right, we've come to our final question because we are running out of time. Unfortunately. It's another one from the metro team rather than one from the readers and I think we'll have to start with reform, the only one that we haven't started with so far. Final question, if we can be quick about it as well. What's the greatest fib you've ever told? Oh, that's a good one. I don't have to answer that. Maybe that's the greatest fear. Yeah. Yeah. I'll go with that. Thank you. Oh, fair enough. All right. Ian Blackford, Scotland are going to win the European champion. I didn't really mean it. Great David. I have two young children, so providing reassurance is kind of part of Dad duty. But I think as we go into this election people will be asking the questions, you know, how much can we trust what we're being told by the politicians. We know that tax in particular is the big elephant in the room. We know, as Wes has just said, they want to complete that £28 billion project which they've taken out of the 2000 lbs per household costs which they have been upfront about. If that's now, as we've just heard, coming back in, then that's a huge amount of tax that's going to have to be raised by the Labour government if they win this election. It's another reason why people should go out and vote Conservative on the 4th of July. Great. Whereas is that the biggest fib you've ever told or is there a different one? No, I suggest, I can barely hear over the sound of the scraping of the barrel there, but I think that it was a very probably the biggest fib I told during this election campaign was when the Mirror, sorry to mention the other titles, asked me if I could. If I had to eat just one meal, the same meal everyday for the rest of the campaign, what would it be? And I said a nice healthy bowl of vegetables to offset the risk of scurvy from a campaign. The the truth is my campaign has been fuelled by caffeine and Haribo and if I could, I would eat fish and chips everyday for the rest of my life, which is definitely not Labour's public health policy by the way. I genuinely can't think of a big fib and if I could I definitely wouldn't tell you. So I guess a little fib. Dem bar charts. So yeah, Lib Dem bar charts. Come on, that's definitely we, we measure ours. This is the dodgy ones from your eye, Kelly. Anyway, probably probably a little a little fib probably at some point in my life has been when I've been too slow to get up and get on the train and I've blamed it on a council temps link train or Ed knows now. And Zach, I'm not going to argue about the sizes of bar charts. And but the greatest fib that I might have told during the testing is if anyone took away the idea that there's going to be a Green government to respond to Wes directly. There will not be a Green government, there will be a Labour government. But if people vote Green, in particular Bristol, Brighton N Herefordshire and Waverley Valley, there can be 4 Green MPs, hopefully even more, who can hold this future Labour government to account, to be bolder, braver and better. And I didn't answer the first question seriously, so I thought I'd flip it around. That's my lettuce answer. OK, right. Brilliant. Thank you all so much, all six of you for for helping us out there. That was that was absolutely excellent. Thank you. I really appreciate you engaging with all the questions and helping us out and taking your time. So thank you all very much. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you.