Please find attached the draft transcript for BBC’s Prime Ministerial Debate, broadcast live on BBCOne at 8.30pm tonight. This draft has been taken down phonetically and converted to text by usingstenographic software. It has not been edited or checked, and therefore might not be a 100%accurate reflection of the debate. We are hoping to email you the final edited version of the transcriptwithin the next hour.

The correct spelling of the people who asked questions:Nadeem AfzalAdina WrightIain GrayJean SimpsonRadley RussellAnna HeywoodGraham ParkinMichael Crowhurst

Thursday, 29 April 2010MR DIMBLEBY: Tonight, who do you want to be your next PrimeMinister?Good evening and welcome to the Great Hall at theUniversity of Birmingham for the third and final PrimeMinisterial Debate of this election. Three men, each ofwhom wants to be our next Prime Minister: the leader ofthe Conservative Party, David Cameron; the leader of theLiberal Democrats, Nick Clegg; and the leader of theLabour Party, Gordon Brown.Tonight, a large part of the debate will be on thestate of the country's economy, the recession, thenational debt, unemployment; the issues that many peoplebelieve will decide this election. Our audience here isrepresentative of this area. We've also selected somequestioners from thousands of emails we received at theBBC News website. The leaders, of course, haven't beentold the questions, and in any case we start with briefopening remarks from each of them. First, DavidCameron.MR CAMERON: Good evening. Our economy is stuck in a rutand we need change to get it moving. Let me tell youwhat I would do.First, we've got to reward work and tackle welfaredependency. Second, we've got to fix our banks, taxthem to get our money back, regulate them properly andget them lending again. Third, we have to start makingthings again in this country. It's no policy to justborrow from the Chinese and buy goods made in China.Fourth, we've actually got to get value for money in ourpublic services. I want good public services foreveryone, and we can only do that if we save and stopthe waste.Let me tell you one thing I wouldn't do: with Greeceso much in the news, I can guarantee you that I wouldnever join the euro and I would keep the pound as ourcurrency.That's the change we need, and if you vote

Conservative next Thursday, we can start to get to workon Friday.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you, Mr Cameron. Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: Tonight's debate is about you: about your job,the taxes you pay, your family, about the prosperity ofour economy. We need to do things differently to builda new, stronger and fairer economy.The way they got us into this mess is not the wayout, so we need to be frank about the cuts that will beneeded so we can protect things like schools andhospitals. We need to break up our banking system sothat irresponsible bankers can never again put yoursavings and your businesses at risk. We have torediscover our passion for innovation, for buildingthings, not just placing bets on the money markets, andwe need fair taxes so that you don't pay any income taxon your first £10,000.Of course, they'll tell you tonight that thesethings can't be done. I think we've got to do thingsdifferently, to deliver the fairness, the prosperity andthe jobs that you and your families deserve.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you, Mr Clegg. Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: There's a lot to this job and, as you sawyesterday, I don't get all of it right, but I do knowhow to run the economy in good times and in bad. Whenthe banks collapsed, I took immediate action to stopcrisis becoming calamity and to stop a recessionbecoming a depression, and as a result of that, Britainis now on the road to recovery.But as we meet tonight, economies in Europe are inperil and there is a risk of dragging us into recession.So I'm determined that nothing will happen in Britainthat will put us back in that position, and I want toset out my plan and why this year is so important.Support the economy now and you will ensure thatthere are jobs and the recovery and ensure that we canhave the resources for deficit reduction. Shrink theeconomy now, as the Conservatives will do, and they riskyour jobs, your living standards and tax credits. It'snot my future that matters; it's your future that's onthe ballot paper next Thursday, and I'm the one to fightfor your future.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown, thank you.Now we take our first question of the night, and itcomes from Nadine Afsow.^nameQUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: We all know there's going to bespending cuts after the general election, no matter whowins. Why can't you be honest and tell us?MR DIMBLEBY: Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: We have set out in our manifesto -- you can havea look at it -- in the back pages we have set outnumbers right there specifying the savings that we dothink should be made. We've set out in much greaterdetail than any other party £15 billion worth of savingswhich are a kind of upfront downpayment to deal with

this huge black hole we have in our public finances.What are we talking about? Things like scrappingthe new generation of biometric passports, public sectorpay restraint, saying that the top 20 per cent ofrecipients of tax credits shouldn't receive those taxcredits so they can be targeted elsewhere. I'm saying"no" to things like the multi-billion-pound EurofighterTyphoon project, a defence project. Those are the kindof big decisions you need to take.What you can't do -- and this is where I reallydisagree with David Cameron and Gordon Brown -- is tryand fool you into thinking that just efficiency savingsare enough. You can't fill the black hole by just a fewsavings on pot plants and paperclips in Whitehall.MR DIMBLEBY: Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: We've set out a four-year deficit reduction plan,and that starts from 2011 and it's designed to have taxrises that are fair, spending cuts that are equitable,and at the same time growth in the economy that isessential for recovery. Our four-year deficit reductionplan includes a rise in the top rate of tax above£100,000, taking away pension tax reliefs for thoseabove £100,000 at the higher rate and a NationalInsurance rise, but it also includes spending cuts inkey areas.But we have one principle that we're adopting, andit's clear: we're not going to allow the front lineNational Health Service or schools or policing to becut. We will find the cuts in other areas, as we've setout, including in public sector pay and pensions andincluding the restructuring of government.But I do say one thing that is absolutely crucial:don't believe that we can fail to support the economythis year. If we fail to support the economy this year,then we risk a double-dip recession, and that's reallythe problem with the Conservative policy.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron.MR CAMERON: Well, Nadine, you're quite right, there aregoing to have to be cuts and we need to be frank aboutthis, and we were the first to say that cuts would haveto be made. But I really want to explain to people thatif I'm your Prime Minister, I will do everything I canto protect the front-line services. I want to see thepolice officers on the beat, the money go into ourchildren's state schools, the money on the ward in thehospital. That's absolutely essential.Now, we do have to say some of the difficult thingswe're going to do, and we have done that. We are notjust relying on waste. We've said, for instance, therewill have to be a public sector pay freeze for one yearfrom 2011. That's not popular, but it is the rightthing to do. We've said that people are going to haveto retire a year later, starting in 2016. These aredifficult decisions.I believe also we've got to get our economy growing,

we've got to get it moving, and that's why we say startnow with efficiency savings to stop the jobs tax nextyear. Let's get employing people again in Britain,let's get the economy moving to help us with thedeficit.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you very much. Well, those are theopening statements. Let me just repeat the question: weall know there are going to be spending cuts after thegeneral election, no matter who wins. Why can't you behonest and tell us? And I assume it means tell us aboutall the cuts you might make.Nick Clegg, you have a chance to respond to what theothers have said.MR CLEGG: Well, I think one thing I would like to add isthis: that -- and I think you're quite right in implyingthat none of the political parties have spelt out allthe details; some of them are simply not possible tospell out now, but clearly more work will need to bedone. We've gone further than others, but clearly morewill need to be done. But something that would makea huge difference to us all as we deal with these verydifficult decisions about how to balance the books isfor once to get the politicians actually workingtogether on this.What I've suggested, and I don't know whether DavidCameron and Gordon Brown want to take up my invitation,is that regardless of the outcome of the generalelection next week, wouldn't it be a good thing to getthe Chancellor and Vice Chancellors of all the partiestogether, with the Governor of the Bank of England, withthe head of the Financial Services Authority, simply tosort of be open and be straight with you about how bigthis black hole is and roughly how long it's going totake to deal with it, so that we're all at leastspeaking from, you know, the same script about how bigthis problem is. I think, for once, politicians puttingthe country before themselves would be a very good thingon this issue.MR DIMBLEBY: Gordon Brown?MR BROWN: Let's be clear: from 2011, there will be cuts andspending in departments other than the NHS, other thanschools and other than policing, but we will make thecommitment to maintain these front-line services andbuild on the improvements that we have made. Onceyou've built a school and a hospital, as we've done inthe last few years, you don't need to build it again, sowe can have cuts in capital investment. Public sectorinvestment will not rise as it did in previous years andpublic sector pensions are being reformed.But I have to say one thing which is crucial to thetime we are in at the moment in this uncertain anddangerous world. David is proposing that there be cutsin public spending now, £6 billion, and that will shrinkthe economy at a time when we need to support theeconomy. We cannot afford to lose jobs and businesses

and lose growth now. We must maintain the recovery andsupport it. Please let us not make the mistake of the1930s and the 1980s and the 1990s, and let us supportthe economy until the recovery is assured.MR DIMBLEBY: Your response, David Cameron?MR CAMERON: Well, let me respond to this point about the£6 billion as directly as I possibly can. £6 billionsaving this year, so we stop the jobs tax next year:that means saving £1 out of every £100 that thegovernment spends. That is the glossy leaflet thatcomes through your door from the local council: that's£1 in £100. It's the fact that managers in the NHS gota 7 per cent pay rise this year: that's the £1 in £100.We have the leaders of Britain's biggest and mostsuccessful businesses, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's,Mothercare, Corus, the steel makers, all saying that therisk to the recovery is not cutting waste; the risk tothe recovery is putting up National Insurance on everyjob in the country, which is what Labour propose. So wesay: roll up your sleeves now, let's save the wastewhere we can to stop the taxes. It's the right thing todo and it will help get our economy moving.MR DIMBLEBY: Can we explore some of these ideas?Gordon Brown?MR BROWN: David's got it wrong. We're making £15 billionof efficiency savings now. He wants these savings ontop of that, without putting the money back into theeconomy. Look, you go to America, look at France, lookat Germany, look at the other countries: they're saying,as all the international institutions are saying, don'twithdraw the support from the recovery until therecovery is assured.What David would do, in an emergency budget in a fewweeks' time, is for idealogical reasons take £6 billionout of the economy and put our recovery at risk. Thetime to do the deficit reduction is when the recovery isassured, and David, you've just got it wrongeconomically and it's the same mistake the Conservativesmade, the same old Conservative Party of the 1930s, the1980s and the 1990s.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron?MR CAMERON: It is every business leader, every leadingbusiness leader is saying that we have got it right andthe government going on wasting money is wrong. But letme tell you where I think we should start. We shouldstart with welfare. Under this government there are now5 million people on out-of-work-related benefits. Thereare people who could work, who we would train and offerwork, but we should say in our country: if you don'taccept work, you can't go on claiming benefits. That'ssomething that Labour have left us with, this terriblemess, and the Liberal Democrats have almost nothing tosay about welfare. So as we try to get public spendingunder control, let's start with people who can work, whoare offered work, but who don't take it.

MR DIMBLEBY: Nick Clegg?MR CLEGG: Sorry, can I just try and move beyond the sort ofpolitical point-scoring. I mean, look, we are not asa nation going to be able to balance the books, we'renot going to be able to fill the black hole in ourpublic finances, unless we also do it with fairnessright at the heart of everything we do. People aren'tgoing to accept these difficult decisions unless we alsodo it fairly.That's why I think, accompanying the difficult jobof actually filling the structural deficit, we also needto introduce a big tax switch so that people on ordinaryincomes or low incomes get a tax break, £700 back intheir pockets, so they don't pay any income tax on thefirst £10,000 they've earned, by closing the loopholesat the top and using the money so that people feel that,whilst difficult decisions are being made, at least thetax system is on their side.I think if you don't have fairness at the heart ofeverything we do, it's going to be very, very difficultto see us through these difficult decisions in the yearsto come.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown, do you want to pick that up?MR BROWN: David and Nick are not addressing the questionnow. If you shrink the economy now, if you contract it,if you make the mistake of the 1930s, then you losejobs, you lose growth, you lose businesses. We've gotto support the recovery until it's fully established andthen my deficit reduction plan, which is a four-yearplan, comes into place. But take money out of theeconomy now, David, for idealogical reasons, and you putthe recovery at risk, and I do fear an emergency Torybudget in a few weeks' time putting the very work we'vedone to secure the recovery in jeopardy, and no othercountry in the world is prepared to do that now.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron, what do you say about that?MR CAMERON: What Labour seem to confuse is they confuse theeconomy with the government. What we're saying is: savegovernment waste to put money back into people'spockets. That's what -- if you think about this, saving£1 out of every £100, that is something that every smallbusiness, every large business, many families have hadto do in this country, and governments should do thesame. Gordon's argument, in a way, is: let me go onwasting your money so I can put up your taxes next year,and it's taxes on people earning £20,000, £21,000.These are not rich people; they shouldn't be paying forthe mistakes of the bankers and for the dreadful recordof Gordon's government.MR BROWN: David, you're not talking about the economy now.MR CLEGG: Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: I mean, I think one of the problems -- surely oneof the problems here we've got, Gordon Brown talks abouta plan in the future but has got no details on it,David Cameron talks about doing something now but has

also got no details on it. Surely what we could do, foronce, is get the Chancellors and Vice Chancellors of allthe parties together, I've suggested we call it theCouncil for Financial Stability, so that at least --you're right, which is the point of Nadine's question --so that politicians are finally upfront with you, arestraight with you, about how bad this problem is and howlong it's going to take for us as a country, together,to deal with it.MR DIMBLEBY: Well, we've a number of questions to come onthe economy so let's move on to a second question. It'sfrom Edina Wright,^name please.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: Over the past few years, thetaxmen are taking more and more from the averageworker's payslip. If you were elected, what would youdo about taxes?MR DIMBLEBY: Over the past few years, the taxman has takenmore and more from the average worker's payslip. If youwere elected, what would you do about taxes?Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: Well, I accept it's been tough in these last twoyears with the recession, but what we've tried to dowhen people are in difficulty is provide tax credits,and a half-million people have got tax credits whenthey've been on short time and are trying to get throughthis recession. We've brought down the basic rate oftax from 23p when we came in to 20p. At the same timewe've raised the top rate of tax above £150,000 to 50p,so that that's fair to ordinary hard-working families.Now, I believe in fairness, but one thing thatI don't believe in is the Conservative policy whichwould cut child tax credits but at the same time give aninheritance tax cut to the 3,000 richest people in thecountry of £200,000. Now, that's not fairness, that'sthe same old Conservative Party: tax cuts for the veryrich and cutting the child tax credits of the very poor.It's simply not fair.MR CAMERON: Well, you're absolutely right: the taxpayer hasbeen having to pay more and more as the government hasspent more and more and has been so careless at tryingto stop wasting money. We see waste all around us, andthe government has done very little about it.Now, obviously, with the terrible situation we havein our public finances, with the mess left by Gordon andLabour where out of every £4 the government spends, £1is borrowed, it's not possible to make great big taxgiveaway promises. Even if it would be a lovely thingto do, you can't do it. But what we've said is: let'stry to stop the one tax that is going to hit thelowest-paid people, and that's the National Insurancetax I was referring to earlier. We can't stop all ofthe other taxes, the top rate of tax, the extra tax onthe pension. I mean, Labour have put up tax somethinglike 178 times. But we are going to stop that one taxthat will hit the lowest-paid the hardest.

And let me just say this about tax credits: theywill stay under a Conservative government, and GordonBrown has to stop misleading families in this countrylike he's been misleading older people and cancerpatients as well.MR DIMBLEBY: He'll have a chance to answer that ina moment. Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: Was it Edina? Sorry, in this echoey hallI couldn't hear your -- yes. Edina, I think you'reabsolutely right: our tax system is grotesquely unfair.After 13 years of Labour, who would have believed it,that you would have now a tax system wherea multi-millionaire from the City of London pays a lowerrate of tax on their capital gains -- that's income toyou and me -- than their cleaner does on their wages.After 13 years of Labour, we've got the bottom20 per cent of people in this country who pay more intax as a proportion of their income than the top20 per cent. So I think we need to change that.David Cameron says you can't afford tax giveaways.No, you can't. What you can do is switch the taxsystem, make it fair, make sure that those hugeloopholes that only people right at the top, verywealthy people who can afford a football team of lawyersand accountants to get out of paying tax, close thoseloopholes, give the money back to people, so that theypay no income tax on the first £10,000 that you earn.That's £700 back in the pocket of the vast majority ofyou in this country.MR DIMBLEBY: Just before we go onh, let me just repeat thequestion: over the past few years, the taxman has takenmore and more from the average worker's payslip. If youwere elected, what would you do about taxes?Gordon Brown, what would you say in reply toDavid Cameron's attack on you?MR BROWN: That nobody earning below £20,000 will pay theNational Insurance rise. The reason for the NationalInsurance rise is to ensure our health services, ourpolice and our education and David cannot guaranteefunding for police and education that will match whatwe're doing. That's the reason for the NationalInsurance rise, but nobody below £20,000 will pay it.Six million people in this country receive taxcredits, and the Conservatives and the Liberals havea plan to reduce tax credits for middle-class families.I come back to this central question about fairness inthe tax system. If David wants fairness in the taxsystem, why does he support this inheritance tax cut foronly 3,000 families worth £200,000 each? The biggestbeneficiary of the Conservative manifesto is, as always,the richest estates in the country and not the ordinaryhard-working people in this country. And if theLiberals want to cut child tax credits with theConservative, then I can say one thing: I will neverform an alliance with a Conservative government that

cuts child tax credits.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron?MR CAMERON: Well, what you're hearing is very desperatestuff from someone who is in a desperate state, but youhave heard from Labour and Gordon Brown that if you earn£20,000 or over, you're considered rich; you'reconsidered a target for the Labour government to go onwasting money this year and to hit you with taxes nextyear.Now, let me answer this question directly aboutinheritance tax. I believe in this country that if youwork hard and you save money and you put aside money andyou try and pay down your mortgage on a family home, youshouldn't have to sell that or give it to the taxmanwhen you die. You should be able to pass it on to yourchildren. It's the most natural human instinct of all,and I'm afraid these other two parties simply don'tunderstand that.Inheritance tax should only be paid by the richest,by the millionaires; it shouldn't be by people who'veworked hard and done the right thing in their lives.It's not our top priority, our top priority is helpingthose on the £20,000 that are going to be hit byGordon's other tax, but should we try and encouragepeople to work hard and save? I say: yes, we should.MR CLEGG: Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: Well, I have to say, David Cameron, that's themost creative justification I've ever heard for givingtax breaks to double millionaires. But anyway, thereyou go.Look, I think Edina's point is that taxes are unfairon millions of people on ordinary incomes, not thedouble millionaires that David Cameron wants to help; onordinary people who are simply struggling to pay thefuel bills, to pay the petrol prices, to pay the weeklyshopping bills. I'm totally with you on this, Edina.I think it's just -- I think it's just wrong.Let's say you're, I don't know, a teaching assistanton £10,000 a year. At the moment, you will pay -- let'ssay you work, I don't know, maybe three days a week --you will pay about £1,000 of that in tax and NationalInsurance. Under our plan, by lifting the income taxthreshold to £10,000, you won't pay any income tax onthat first £10,000. I believe that if people work hard,if they -- particularly if they want to get off benefitsand start working, even if it's just part-time, weshould help them keep more of their money. It is assimple as that. That is the fair thing to do.MR BROWN: (inaudible)^emergency? tax means that we havetax credits, and 6 million people benefit from that. Asfar as the teaching assistant who is earning a very lowincome is concerned, there is the working tax creditthat is available to them.But I come back to this central question aboutfairness that has been raised by our questioner. How

can David possibly justify an inheritance tax cut formillionaires at a time when he wants to cut child taxcredits? Let's be honest: the inheritance tax thresholdfor couples is £650,000. If your house is worth lessthan that, you pay no inheritance tax. What David isdoing is giving 3,000 people, who are the richest peoplein the country, he is going to give them £200,000 eacha year. Now, that is simply unfair when he also wants,like Nick, to cut the child tax credits from ordinaryfamilies in this country. I have to speak out aboutthis because it's simply unfair and immoral for theConservatives to put this as their election manifesto.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron?MR CAMERON: Well, you're quite entitled to speak out, butthe Prime Minister ought to get his facts right and, asso often, he gets his facts wrong. We all remember whenhe told us the defence budget went up every year, whenin fact he didn't -- it didn't go up every year when hewas sending troops to war.On this issue of tax credits, we are saying we liketax credits, we will keep tax credits, but for familiesearning over £50,000, we think that we can't afford thechild tax credit. That's one of the savings that we'rebeing upfront and frank about. But for Gordon Brown tosay that actually the changes we're making would hitlow-income families is simply not true. As I say, lastweek in these debates he tried to frighten people,saying the Conservatives would take away benefits whenwe will keep the winter fuel allowance, we will keep thecold winter payments. He's trying again to frightenpeople, and actually he should be ashamed of what he'sdoing.MR DIMBLEBY: Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: Here they go again. Look, tax credits, whichI think Gordon Brown has rightly raised because taxcredits are really really important, I mean, I thinkit's just -- I just don't think it makes sense really,at a time when money is tight, that someone -- someoneeven on, you know, on my salary, which is a really goodMP's salary, could be entitled to the family componentof tax credits. I don't think it's right to have taxcredits going so far up the income scale. Why don't wesay: not for the top 20 per cent of recipients? You canthen target tax credits for the people who need it.And the other thing I would say about tax credits isthis: I've now had enough people in tears in myconstituency office where I'm a MP in Sheffield becausethey've been given money one moment, they've spent thatmoney on their children, on heating bills, and thensuddenly they get a letter out of the blue from thegovernment saying: you have to pay that money back.That is so unfair on particularly single parents andsingle mothers for whom the tax credits are an absolutelifeline. That's why I think tax ^inaud should begiven a six-month (overspeaking).

MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown, could I just ask you to clarifysomething. You said a little bit back that both theLiberal Democrats and the Conservatives wanted toabolish certain tax credits and you couldn't supporta Conservative Party that wanted to do that. What aboutthe Liberal Democrats?MR BROWN: The Liberal party want to cut child tax creditsas well. We're talking about tax credits paid tochildren. We've fought hard for a long time to ensurethat we can give children and families decent incomes.The Liberals will cut the child tax credits and so willthe Conservatives. The Conservatives want to save£400 million, the Liberals £1.2 billion. The Instituteof Fiscal Studies said that David's proposals and whathe said were "misleading, incomplete and regressive".I come back to this question: why cut children's taxcredits for middle-class families when you want to givea big inheritance tax cut to the richest estates in thecountry, who do not need that money at the moment?MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron?MR CAMERON: People can remember the record of 13 years.They remember who it was who abolished the 10p tax thathit some of the poorest people in the country thehardest. They remember the measly 75p increase onpensioners that Gordon Brown was responsible for.Let me say this: the whole reason we're having thisdebate about how difficult it is to get taxes down, howdifficult it's going to be to cut spending, is becausethis Prime Minister and this government have left oureconomy in such a complete mess, with a budget deficitthat this year is forecast to be bigger than that ofGreece. That's why we're having to have this debate.Let's not forget whose responsibility(overspeaking).^MR DIMBLEBY: Nick Clegg, very briefly, if you would.MR CLEGG: I just feel ^inaud for Edina, who must becompletely lost by all this political point-scoring.The fact is, Edina, you are right, taxes are unfair. Wehave a plan -- we think it's a great plan -- to switchtaxes so that you get more money back in your pocket.That's what I think we need to do to make taxes fairer.MR DIMBLEBY: All right. Let's go on to another question.Thank you, Mr Clegg. This one is from Ian Gray, please,Ian Gray.^nameQUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: It is clearly grossly unfair fortaxpayers to have funded the banks, yet for bankers toaward themselves huge bonuses whilst ordinary people areworse off and many have lost their jobs. How will eachparty bring its version of fairness to this very unfairsituation?MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron.MR CAMERON: Well, Ian is absolutely right: it is completelyunacceptable what has happened and we need to grip itvery, very hard to sort this out for the future.The first thing we need to do is actually regulate

these banks properly. We would put back to the Bank ofEngland the power to regulate the banks, includinghaving a big say over the appalling bonuses that havebeen paid. The next thing we need is a bank levy, andwe say: don't wait for the rest of the world; put thatlevy on now to start getting back the money from thebanks that so many people have had to put in. We alsowant to see the banks lending again, particularly tosmall businesses, and so we need to make that happen.Something else we need to do is this: retail banks,banks that you and I put our deposits into, they shouldnot be behaving like casinos taking wild bets. So weagree with President Obama's plan, which is actually tosay those banks shouldn't be able to take part in themost risky activities. That, I think, would start toget this under control and make sure the banks serve theeconomy and serve the people, rather than the people andthe economy serving the banks.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Clegg.MR CLEGG: Well, Ian, specifically on bonuses, I would saywe need to do the following. Firstly -- it soundsdraconian, but I think it's now necessary -- we shouldsay: no bonuses whatsoever to the directors of banks atboard level. Why do I say that? Because I don't wantpeople who are actually running those businesses, whichthey should be running for the long-term interests ofthe business and indeed for their clients, to be kind ofsusceptible to the temptations of the bonus incentive.By all means pay them lots of money, give them a fancymembership of a golf club, but don't give them thesebonuses. Then I would say: absolutely no cash bonusesat or above £2,500. And finally, I don't think bankswhich are making losses should be handing outmulti-billion-pound bonuses at all, full stop.So, no bonuses in banks who make a loss; no bonusesfor people at director level; and no cash bonuses above£2,500. That's specific, it's tough, but it willfinally root out this outrageous abuse of bankers'bonuses.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown.MR BROWN: David, I had to nationalise Northern Rock and wehad also to take over the Royal Bank of Scotland andHalifax Lloyds TSB, and the reason we did so was to savethe savings and deposits of families throughout thecountry. If we hadn't done that, then the banks wouldhave collapsed. But now we've got to restructure thebanks in a way that is in the public interest.I have never been so angry as when I talked to thechairman of a bank who told me the night before his bankcollapsed that all he had was a cashflow problem, whenI knew it was a structural failing that was absolutelyfundamental and the banks needed recapitalisedimmediately.Now, what we've got to do is recapitalise the banksso that they are safe for people. What we've then got

to do is to make sure, as we are doing, thatremuneration is fair. We do need a worldwide agreementto get a global financial levy that is charged in everycountry, so we are not undercut by other countries andthere is a race to the bottom. But I would say to thosebankers: we will never allow them to act in anirresponsible and unfair way again.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron.MR CAMERON: Well, what I would say to what the PrimeMinister has just said is that if you look at the Labourrecord over the last 13 years, they did very much hitchthe whole fortunes of the economy to the City of Londonand we got into a situation where we ended up with thewhole economy having to serve the banks rather than theother way around.I assume the banker that we are just being toldabout was probably Fred Goodwin, so-called "Fred theShred". It was actually this government that gave thisman a knighthood for services to banking. He not onlybroke his own bank; he very nearly brought down thewhole economy.So there are big, big lessons to learn, and I thinkthe most important is that we put the Bank of Englandback in charge of regulating the banks and give them thespecific duty of calling time on debt in the economy.Things got completely out of control. The banks wereregulated, but badly and by the wrong organisation. Andthe one party that wants to scrap the current system andput the Bank of England back in charge and change thingsis the Conservatives.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Clegg?MR CLEGG: Well, David Cameron has been talking aboutparties being too close to the City. The blunt truth isthat both Conservative and Labour governments now forages have been far too close to the City, basicallypreferring the interests of the one square mile of theCity of London rather than the 100,000 square miles ofthe whole of the United Kingdom.What I think we now need to do is look fundamentallyat what went wrong in the way in which the banks wereworking. And my view is this: that as long as you havebanks which mix up high -- sort of high-risk,freewheeling casino investment banking on the one handand the sort of conservative, sober retail high-streetbanking which we all depend on, then you're asking fortrouble. And that's why -- and the governor of the Bankof England says this as well -- many people areincreasingly saying we should split up the banks betweeninvestment banking on the one hand and high-streetbanking on another, in order to ensure that we never,ever, ever again have the banks hold a gun to the restof the British economy. And still, still we haven'tdone enough to protect ourselves from that risk in thefuture.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown, do you want to respond?

MR BROWN: We have taxed the banks on bonuses witha £2 billion tax that came through in the pre-budgetreport. We are ensuring that every penny that has beengiven to the banks comes back, and that is why we aretaking the action that is necessary to recoup the moneyfrom the banks.I want a global financial levy that America -- thatI've been talking to President Obama about -- and Franceand Germany are at least part of, because I don't wanta race to the bottom and banks moving out of thiscountry. Northern Rock failed, but it was a small bank.HSBC is successful and it's a big bank. It's not thesize of the banks, it's the way that some of them werebeing run.And look, I tell you, the answer, David, is not todo what you say in your manifesto. You are planning tocut corporation tax for banks in your manifesto. You'regoing to take money from investment allowances formanufacturing industries in this region and givea corporation tax cut to the banks. Now, that again,I'm afraid, is the same old Tory party.MR DIMBLEBY: Let's explore these arguments a bit.David Cameron?MR CAMERON: Well, let me make one important point, whichis: having learnt the lesson of having to bail out thebanks, I think the next lesson we must learn is we mustnot put ourselves in the position of having to bail outother European economies, and people need to know thatthe Liberal Democrats in their manifesto are still infavour of joining the euro.As late as last year, Nick Clegg was saying the eurowould be an anchor for our economy. If we were in theeuro now, your taxes, your National Insurance would notbe going on hospitals and schools and police officers;they would be going to Greece, and possibly othercountries as well. And that's why I say one of thelessons to learn is: let's stay out of the euro, let'skeep our own currency, and let's recognise whata massive strategic error the Liberal Democrats wouldhave made.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Clegg?MR CLEGG: This is really getting desperate. No, I'm notadvocating entry into the euro. I would only everadvocate it, by the way, if ever, if the economicconditions were right, it was good for your jobs, goodfor pensions, good for savings. And, of course, italways has to be only decided, if we were ever to dothat as a country, on a referendum where you can vote onit.But can I just go back to the issue, you know, thatwas at hand, which was the banks. Gordon Brown talksabout waiting for the rest of the world to catch up andimpose a levy. I think we need to impose a 10 per centtax, a 10 per cent levy, on the profit of the banks now,and I'll tell you why: because under our tax system in

this country, the banks can offset the tax they'resupposed to pay against the losses they've already made.That means that for some banks they're basically notpaying any tax at all, even though we bailed them out,and the only tax they would pay would be this10 per cent levy that we say should be on their profits.That's the way forward. If you wait for the rest ofthe world to catch up, we will never, ever get round todoing this at all.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown.MR BROWN: We are taking money from the banks, and we willinsist on doing so. We own the shares of most of thetwo big banks, and the shares, as they rise in value, wewill recoup that value for the country. So we've donebusiness for the country, which is to nationalise, butthen to get the profit when we sell on the shares ata future date. We will continue to fight for a globallevy, and it will happen this year, but it will happenin a way that banks don't leave our country but banksstay in our country.I come back to the question that I ask David again.He didn't answer the question on inheritance tax.Corporation tax he's going to cut by 3p for the banks.Now, why is he cutting corporation tax for the bankswhen he says that he wants to make sure that the bankspay their share? To cut it by 3p is money is taken frommanufacturing industry. Again, it's the same oldConservative Party.MR DIMBLEBY: Briefly, if you would, Mr Cameron.MR CAMERON: We want a bank levy to get the money off thebanks that all of us have had to put into the banks.But do I want to cut taxes on all businesses,particularly small businesses, to get the economymoving? You're damn right I do. We've got to get thiseconomy moving, otherwise we're not going to get thejobs, we're not going to get the investment and thewealth that we need.The Prime Minister's got to face up to the fact thatright now, it's not working. Small businesses come tomy surgery and say, "I've never gone over my overdraftlimit, I've never broken my covenants, but I cannot geta loan." We've stuffed these banks full of money,they're not lending, and we need some action froma government that is going to roll up its sleeves, stoptrying to defend its hopeless record, and recognise weneed change to get our economy moving.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you, Mr Cameron. Let's move on, becausewe've got a lot more on the economy. We've gota question from Jean Simpson, please, Jean Simpson.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: This area used to be full ofbusinesses that made things, so many of them being shutdown, sold off and gone abroad. I want to know how youpropose to rebuild the country's manufacturingindustries. We can't just have offices and shops.MR DIMBLEBY: We can't just have offices and shops.

Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: I strongly agree with you, Jean. You know, I'ma MP from a city -- Sheffield -- also very proud of itsindustrial heritage.I think the first thing we need to do -- I would saythree things -- the first thing is to get the bankslending. If you don't get the banks lending tomanufacturing companies, it's like a body without bloodcirculating in it: everything just sort of stops.I was at a small company in Warrington a few weeksago, a very, very good example. They manufacture new,environmentally friendly, sustainable lighting fixtures.They've got lots of clients, lots of demand; they can'texpand because the banks won't lend to them onreasonable rates. That is an outrage. The banks thatwe own lent less money last year than the year before.They should be lending more. After all, it's your moneythat's gone to bail them out.But the second thing we need to do is we need toinvest in the kind of things we need not in the futureanyway: affordable housing, green energy, renewableenergy, public transport; the kind of things whichcreate jobs for our young people, help manufacturing andcreate the green infrastructure that I think we need asa country in any event.MR DIMBLEBY: Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: I visited a manufacturer today who is involved inselling to the rest of the world, including to China andAsia, with the most advance precision manufacturing.And I believe over the next few years we can create400,000 jobs in low-carbon industries, I believe we cancreate half a million jobs in the digital industries ofthe future, I believe biotechnology -- and this regionis very good at biotechnology as well as advancemanufacturing -- can see 100,000 jobs. But we, asa government, are investing with these companies in theequipment that they need for the future. So I amoptimistic about the future of the British economy andoptimistic about this region.What I would insist on, however, is that the banksdo lend, and that's why we've appointed an arbitrator.Where people are dissatisfied with what the banksdecide, they can go to them and we will back them up.Secondly, we will continue to give investment allowanceswhich would be abolished by the Conservatives. Andthirdly, we will maintain the regional developmentagencies, which again the Conservatives want to remove.It's very important we back regional manufacturing inthis great centre of manufacturing industry for ourcountry.MR DIMBLEBY: Just a reminder of the question: this area --the Birmingham area -- used to be full of businessesthat made things. So many of them have been shut downor sold off and gone abroad. I want to know how youpropose to rebuild the company's manufacturing

industries. We can't just have offices and shops.David Cameron.MR CAMERON: Well, I think Jean is just absolutely right.I mean, here we are in Birmingham, this was known as thecity of 1,000 trades, and yet in the last 13 years we'velost 60,000 jobs in manufacturing. We've been losingmanufacturing industry faster than in the 1980s. It'sbeen a complete tragedy. We've got to rebuild.How do we do that? Well, let's start with investingin our science base and making sure great universitieslike this are producing the scientists and entrepreneursof the future. Let's make sure we invest inapprenticeships. So much of the government's trainingbudget is wasted. We say: let's have 200,000 extraapprenticeships, that would make a difference. But youcan't ignore the basics of actually making it easier forbusinesses to employ people, and that's why I come backto this point that if we keep putting up the cost of oneperson saying to another person, "Come and work for me,"we're never going to get more employment.So it's science, technology, apprenticeships,raising the status of science teachers, making sure wereward entrepreneurship and, yes, having low taxes forbusinesses. That's part of getting them here andkeeping them here.MR DIMBLEBY: So how do you respond to the arguments of theother two, Nick Clegg?MR CLEGG: Well, actually, as it happens, I agree -- I thinkwe all must agree -- on the points about investing innew technologies, investing in our young people -- I wasat a college here in Birmingham today -- young peopledeveloping vocational qualifications which we need forthe skills of the future. I think that, you know, it'sa good thing that basically all the parties agree onthat.But I come back to this point that I made to Jeanearlier: unless you've got banks helping businesses, itis extremely difficult for them to expand theirproducts, invest in their factories and actually investin creating new jobs. Who would have thought, here inBirmingham of all places, that a bank that you own, RBS,should have been involved in lending money, money thatyou'd given to them in the bail-out, the taxpayerbail-out, should have used that money to fund or helpfund Kraft, the American multinational's, takeover ofCadburys, leading to job losses in Britain? When youlent that money to the banks, did you think that moneywould be used to put people out of work in Britain? No,and it was wrong.MR DIMBLEBY: Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: To bolster manufacturing, we have trebled thenumber of apprenticeships from 70,000 in 1997 to over200,000 now, and we want to raise that numberconsiderable over the next few years. At the same time,there are more students going to university than ever

before in our history, and I'm pleased to say that themajority of students are now women. To helpmanufacturing, the regional development agencies havethe power to support individual businesses, and there'smore than 20,000 firms in this region receiving helpwith cash flow under our programme "Time to Pay".But, you know, the problem is now. You can't takemoney out of the economy now, as David proposes, andhope that businesses can survive with orders. You'vegot to keep the money in the economy. You can't takeinvestment allowances away from businesses, as Davidproposes to do to pay for his corporation tax cut forbanks, without manufacturing suffering. And you cannothelp the region if you take away the regionaldevelopment agency that's doing so much good.So we've got to face up to the fact we've got to actnow, we cannot take money out of the economy, and we'vegot to support manufacturing and not withdraw thesupport that David would do with his policies.MR DIMBLEBY: David Cameron.MR CAMERON: Once again, I think there's just this completeconfusion between the government and the economy, andGordon Brown doesn't seem to understand that actually toget the economy going, you've got to help businessesemploy people, you've got to cut their red tape, cuttheir regulation.Let me tell you one thing government could really doto help. Government is an enormous purchaser of goodsand services, and yet it hardly buys anything from smalland medium-size enterprises. So we say governmentshould give a quarter of its contracts to the smallfirms, the ones that are actually going to be thesuccess stories of tomorrow, and let's make it easierfor firms to register with the government so they canbuy services and sell services to the government. Thatwould actually help to get them going, the greatbusinesses of tomorrow. That's what we need to build.MR DIMBLEBY: Shall we just briefly discuss these pointsthat have been made? Nick Clegg first and then you,Mr Brown.MR CLEGG: Well, I just want to come back to this pointabout how one takes the right decisions to support thenew technologies, the new manufacturing industries ofthe future. I think, for instance -- and it is fairlyobvious -- if you look at the huge number of offshorewind turbines which are now being installed offshore offthe coast of Britain in all sorts of places, that weshould be a world leader in manufacturing this new greentechnology; and yet the only manufacturer of onshorewind turbines has recently closed and the London arrayproject, which is one of the biggest offshore windprojects, off the cost of Kent, 90 per cent of the stuffbeing installed there was built in Denmark and Germany.Why are we not using small amounts of money to invest inold dockyards and shipyards so that we manufacture the

new green technology of the future as well?MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you, Mr Clegg.MR BROWN: But Nick, wind turbines and the development ofthe offshore wind industry is one of our priorities, andwe are now the world's leading offshore wind power andthere are four companies, including Siemens, that haveannounced that they're going to invest in wind power inthis country as a result of government incentives. Andwe're doing the same for digital because we want100 per cent super-fast broadband in this country thatwill serve every community, and including the ruralareas. But you have to have some government finance topersuade people it's necessary to go to 100 per cent andnot to 70 per cent. Biotechnology, we're investingsubstantial sums in the leading cancer and researchcentre for the whole of Europe that will be in Britainas a result of the investment we're making.But I come back to this point: if you cut investmentallowances, David, if you cut the regional developmentagencies, which are a symbol of what the regions can dothemselves, and if you do that to cut corporation taxfor banks, you're putting manufacturing industry at riskand doing the opposite of what is needed now.MR DIMBLEBY: All right, thank you. David Cameron?MR CAMERON: You keep saying "cutting corporation tax forbanks". I want to cut corporation tax for small firms,for every firm, whatever they do, to try and help themkeep more of their profits to reinvest, to expand, totake people on. That's what a growing economy needs.Right now we're stuck.And the Prime Minister talks about renewable energy;after 13 years of a Labour government, we've got one ofthe lowest shares of renewable energy of any country inEurope. They talk and talk. We've had nine energyministers -- in fact, I think two of them were the sameperson -- we've had nine energy ministers, severalenergy strategists, but nothing ever happens. What weneed is change from a government that understandsbusiness, that feels the beating heart of entrepreneurswithin it, and gets things moving.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown.MR BROWN: But David, you're not answering the questions.Why are you cutting investment allowances for themanufacturing industry? Why are you also going to takeaway the regional development agencies and scrap theirfunctions? What good does that do to the West Midlands,that wants investment in manufacturing and wants theregional development agency to work for them?MR DIMBLEBY: All right. Briefly, David Cameron.MR CAMERON: We are cutting taxes for businesses in ourforthcoming budget, if we win the election, andsomething else we'll do is say to every new businessthat starts up: the first ten people you take on, youshouldn't have to pay National Insurance contributions.That's the sort of thing to get the economy moving.

Instead what we have with the current government isthese vast regional bureaucracies paying themselves hugesums of money and not actually helping the businessesthat really want to get our economy moving.MR DIMBLEBY: All right. Thank you very much. We're almosthalfway through this debate and we've got a number ofother topics to come to, apart from the economy.Just before we do, these three parties representedhere tonight are, of course, not the only ones in theUnited Kingdom asking for your vote next week. If youlive in Scotland, you will be able to hear from the SNPon tonight's Ten O'Clock News as well as NewsnightScotland, which is going to be a bit earlier than usual,at 10.45 on BBC2, and on Sunday at 9.00 pm on BBC1,Scotland's four political leaders go head-to-head. Ifyou live in Wales, you can hear the leader ofPlaid Cymru on the Ten O'Clock News in Wales, and theleaders of all the Welsh parties will be on a specialedition of Newsnight on BBC2 Wales, and the leaders arealso going to debate on Sunday at 9 o'clock on BBC1Wales. And there will be a debate between the leadersof Northern Ireland, the four main parties there, nextTuesday on BBC1 Northern Ireland; that's at 9.00 pm.And finally, you can hear from UKIP and the Greens onthe news after this debate.Now, let's go on to another question. Take thisone, please, from Radley Russell.^nameQUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: Are the politicians aware thatthey've become removed from the concerns of the realpeople, especially on immigration, and why don't youremember that you are there to serve us, not ignore us?MR DIMBLEBY: Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: The only reason I came into politics was becauseI saw what was happening in my local community, and I'vegot the good fortune of being the Member of Parliamentfor the people that I grew up with and the people I wentto school with, and the reason I want to be in politicsis to create jobs. And when it comes to immigration,I want to see a situation where we increase the numberof jobs that people trained in Britain can take as welower the numbers of people coming into this country,and that's why we have banned unskilled workers fromoutside Europe from coming into Britain. That's alsowhy we're cutting the numbers of semi-skilled andskilled workers who can come in. We have a list ofoccupations to reserve for people in Britain and not forpeople coming from abroad.What we are doing at the moment is training uppeople so that in the next few years as we move forwardout of this recession the jobs will go to people trainedin Britain, that goes right across from chefs and careassistants, from nurses and to teachers. That's wherewe want to be by training people up for the future.MR CAMERON: I agree with the questioner. Immigration inthis country has been too high for too long and that's

why we have a fair clear approach, to cut it and cut itquite substantially. In these last 13 years, overa million extra people have been given citizenship,that's like another city of Birmingham all over againand we say you need to control it properly. That's whywe say that new countries that join the European Union,they should have transitional control so not everyonecan come here at once. When it comes from immigrationfrom outside the European Union for economic reasons webelieve there needs to be a cap. I want us to get backto the situation where the net number of people cominginto our country is in the tens of thousands, not asit's been in recent years in the hundreds of thousands.One of the benefits of that and it is an importantbenefit is that we can better integrate people into ourcountry, build a stronger society and we wouldn't hearon the doorstep or on the streets on this electioncampaign people worried about immigration because theywould know their government had listen to them, grippedit and got it under control.MR DIMBLEBY: Let me just remind viewers of the question.Are politicians aware they've become removed from theconcerns of real people, especially on immigration, andwhy don't you remember you're there to serve us, notignore us? Nick Clegg?MR CLEGG: Where is Radley, I can hear his voice, there youare. I had this problem last time. Of course you'reright. We are there to serve you, of course and ofcourse we are there to respond to people's concerns.I hear people's concerns about immigration all the timeand the reason I think people have become so anxious isbecause the immigration system itself, the way it works,has become utterly chaotic under concession of Labourgovernments. For instance it was Conservative andlabour governments that removed the commit controls thatI want to see reintroduced so we don't only know who iscoming in but who should be leaving as well. I thinkthere are additional things to do. We do need to havea dedicated board of police force, I think we need tohave a regional approach so if people come here theydon't work or not allowed to work in regions where thereisn't work to do or there would be an unreasonablestrain on public services and we need to deal with thecriminal gangs who have been exploiting illegalimmigrants who came in because of chaos in the system.That is a fair effective workable approach dealing withsomething which is of immense public concern.MR DIMBLEBY: Are politicians aware they have become removedfrom the concerns of real people, especially onimmigration. Gordon Brown?MR BROWN: I come back to the question which asks are wethere to serve people and how best do we serve them,including action on immigration? I want to create jobsfor people in this country and I know in myconstituency, I know in Birmingham in the West Midlands

people are worried about their jobs and worried aboutjob security and they're worried about whether theirchildren and teenage sons and daughters can get a job.That's why I want to give a guarantee to every youngperson under 25 that if they're unemployed for a fewmonths they will get a job. I want to say to adultsthere are jobs available under the job fund so theyshould not be redundant either and I want to protectpeople in jobs by the tax credit system so if you're onshort time you can get extra money from tax credits.I want to make sure there are jobs for people in Britainand train people up to do these jobs.As far as immigration is concerned, to tackleillegal immigration, we have biometric visas, we haveforeign national ID cards, we are anticipate countingpeople in and out of the country, I want to see thataction working by the measures we're bringing in.MR CAMERON: Of course we have to improve the system butI think we also have to get a grip on the numbers. Thisis an important issue and people need to know what arein our manifestos. I've set out my policies but peopledo need to know that the Liberal Democrats propose anamnesty for illegal immigrants. That could mean thatsome 600,000 people who are here legally would actuallybe allowed to stay here and be given full citizenship,access to welfare, access to council housing and canalso bring a relative each into our country. I thinkthat just doesn't make sense. That I think isa complete mistake that would make a bad situation --we've had after 13 years of Labour -- even worse.That's why I say let's grip this problem, talk about itsensitively and sensibly, let's bring immigration downto more manageable levels and I think actually thepublic will respond by making this not an issue atfuture elections.MR CLEGG: I don't want you to be misled by David Cameron.I'm not advocating an amnesty, in fact the only personwho is is Boris Johnson the Conservative Mayor ofLondon. I think we do need to do something about peoplewho are living in the shadows of our economy, GordonBrown and David want to deny it as a problem and pretendit will go away. It won't. I will tell you whobenefits from this layer of people who have been livinghere for years and years in the shadows of our society,it's the nasty criminal gangs who exploit them, exploitus and create crime in our communities.Can I say one other thing. When we deal withsomething as sensitive as immigration, let's at least beopen and honest and straight with you. David Cameronsays you can put a cap on immigration. It is completenonsense since he knows that 80 per cent of people whocome into this country come from the European Union, youcan't cap those numbers so you shouldn't pretend topeople, give them false hope that you can bring numbersdown when you cant he control them in that way. It's

wrong to raise false hopes on such a sensitive topic.MR CAMERON: It's perfectly clear the Liberal Democrats dopropose an amnesty, they can't get away from that.Refugee action, one of the very respected voluntarybodies has criticised them for that and I think for goodreason. We should in this country be trying toencourage people and reward people for doing the rightthing. If you have an amnesty for illegal immigration,you're basically saying to people who came hereillegally, who didn't have the right to come here,that's okay smght and to the people who are queueing up,who want to do the right thing, who want to obey therules, they're being punished. I think as' one of thethings wrong in our country at the moment, we need a newset 6 values and ^^.MR BROWN: I agree with David on this because I can't seehow you send out anything other than the worse possiblemessage if you give an amnesty to people who have comehere illegally. I don't think Nick has had had pois nol^^ amnesty for people who have come to this country.(overspeaking). I think to send out this message iswrong because it just encourages other people to want tocome illegally.But David has also a question to answer. He saysthere should be a cap but he won't give a figure. It'sonce again the Conservative Party concealing somethingthat they should either tell us or say they're not goingto do it properly.MR CLEGG: Maybe I should explain and have them in very muchthe style of old politics making misleading claims.It's a problem I didn't create, you didn't create, theycreated it, Conservative and Labour governments createdchaos in the immigration system. They're here, it'sa problem, they're here whether we like it or not.I think we have to deal with it, I'm saying that thosewho have been here for a decade, who speak English, whowant to pay taxes, who want to come out of the shadows,do community service to make up for what they've donewrong, it's better to get them out of the hands of thecriminals so we can go after the criminals and in thehands of the taxman. You can pretend as much as youlike, David and Gordon, that somehow you can deportpeople when you don't even know where they are. I'mcoming up with a proposal, it might be controversial butit's dealing with the way the world is. Get real, thisis a problem you created, we now need to sort it ona one-off basis. It's a one-off problem which needsa solution.MR CAMERON: It is profoundly misguided. Nick has talked,not tonight but has talked about 600,000 people havingthis amnesty, being able to stay and they would be ableto bring over a relative each. That's 1.2 millionpotentially and all those people would have access towelfare and to housing. I think this could make us --(overspeaking) you explain the number then.

MR CLEGG: Instead of making endlessly misleading comments,let's save time and assume every time you talk about ourpolicy it's just wrong. What I'm saying is there isa layer of illegal immigrants.MR CAMERON: Give us the number.MR CLEGG: We have to deal with it, get out of the hands ofcriminals. You say numbers, can you now tell me,am I right or wrong that 80 per cent of people who comehere come from the European Union and your cap wouldmake no difference to that whatsoever? Is that right,yes or no?MR CAMERON: We have said new EU cins should havetransitional controls. We all remember what happenedwhen Poland joined the European Union, we were told13,000 people would come and in fact it was closer toa million. Nick Clegg and the liberals cannot wriggleon this, are they have spoken about 6 honey thousandpeople, if that's the number, they should come clean onthat.MR CLEGG: Yes or no, do 80 per cent of immigrants come fromthe European Union which ^^.MR CAMERON: It's effected by transitional controls. ^^.MR BROWN: I hate to enter into private grief here becauseboth of them have this wrong I'm afraid. Nick is wrongso send out a message that you can come here illegallyand get an amnesty. David is wrong to mislead peopleabout his cap because it doesn't include European Union(inaudible), what it would do is make it impossible forsome businesses to recruit people from abroad during thecourse of the year and he's never given us a number forhis cap. He really has to tell us what the cap is orstop telling us that there is going to be a cap whenprobably there's not going to be.MR CAMERON: What you can say is two parties that won't gripimmigration and one that will. We want to seeimmigration in tens of thousands, not hundreds ofthousands. Since Gordon has been in government it'snever been lower than 140,000 a year, never been lowerthan that. Under the last Conservative government, itwas never higher than 70,000 a year. It can change.MR BROWN: He won't answer the question about what the capis and Nick won't answer the question about how he canjustify amnesty for illegal immigrants because he'ssending out a message, come to Britain and you'll belegalised in a few years time. It doesn't make senseand I'm sorry Boris Johnson also supports it.MR CLEGG: It's a problem you created, people have come herebecause of the problems your governments created inimmigration system. It would be easy area for me topretend it isn't a problem, it is a problem, it'shelping criminals, I don't want to help criminals,I want to get people in the hands of those taxman. Butneither David Cameron or Gordon Brown know how to deportthem so let's get real with the way the world is ratherthan the way we would like it to be.

MR BROWN: (inaudible) thousands of criminals out of thecountry every year.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: I am married, my husband is anaccountant and we have two children. We work reallyhard and between us have a good joint wage yet still wecannot afford our own family home, nor the largerdeposit necessary these days. What will your party doto help families and others in terms of housing because,if a chartered accountant is priced out of the marketthen what hope is there for anybody else?MR CAMERON: Anne, I have every sympathy with you becausefrankly today in our country I think people who try towork hard and save and obey the rules and do the rightthing, all too often they just find hurdle after hurdleput in their way whereas people who actually don't playby the rules, who don't think about saving and don'tthink about their behaviour often get rewarded andthat's not right. What can we do to help you? First ofall we have to get spending under control so we stopputting your taxes up. We also say that we should haveno stamp duty on the first £250,000 that people, if youcan buy a property for less than that. I think thatwould help.But above all, we've also got to build more houses.I think there's no doubt in my mind that we have got tochange the planning system. Right now it so militatesagainst actually people building houses and we think youneed to scrap these top down targets that make localcommunities so angry but reward councils that go aheadand build homes for families like yours.MR CLEGG: Anne, this is one of the things that I, alongwith immigration that I probably hear about more thananything else as I travel round the country, the lack ofaffordable housing. There are people in your situationbut then there are 1.8 million families, that's5 million people who are still on the waiting list foran affordable home. What do you do about it? I woulddo three things. Firstly there are hundreds ofthousands of empty properties in our communities boardedup, no doubt there are many in Birmingham too, whichI think for a relatively modest amount of money youcould convert into homes which people could live in. Itis just not right, people either can't afford like youAnne or simply can't find places to live in, when wehave all these empty properties. We have a plan set outin our manifesto to convert 250,000 empty homes intohomes people can live in.Secondly, I would give local councils more freedomto borrow against their own assets so they can invest inbuilding you new homes. Third thing, all these emptyflats in our city centres built for one people, I thinkthey should be converted into the homes people need foryoung families like yours.MR BROWN: Anneia is right, the house building industry hasnot served us well in this country and when the crisis

happened the building firms didn't have enough capital,weren't able to survive and so many went under. Yetthere is a pent-up demand for housing in our country.There are 1 million more homeowners than there were tenyears ago so more people are buying their homes. WhatI would like to do, we have extended stamp duty relieffor first time buyers so that is available now. Sharedequity is something that might be considered becausethat's a chance to buy part of your house and it'sa becoming a more popular way of doing things and we arehelping to finance that. The third thing of course isgetting building societies and banks to lend again andwe've signed these agreements that require them to lend92 million this year, a lot of that for mortgages.The fourth thing, as has been said, using up emptyproperty, giving local authorities the power to buildand making sure housing authorities have power to build,I want to increase home ownership and I want to do itquickly with the measures we're taking.MR CAMERON: Just two things we should do and one thing weshouldn't do. First of all, we should build more homesthat are part rent and part mortgage because thatI think gives people, I've seen this in my ownconstituency, the chance to get one step on housingladder and as circumstances change, they can increasethe mortgage and reduce the rent. Also rewardingresponsibility, people who live in council homes witha record of good behaviour, give them a stake in thathouse so when they move they have the start of somecapital to move up the housing ladder.One thing we shouldn't do and this is in the LiberalDemocrat manifesto is putting VAT on building new homes.That would just lift the price of new homes even higherout of people like Anna's reach. I think it would bea big big mistake. Once again it just doesn't make anysense.MR CLEGG: I'll come to that in a second but I've talkedabout how I think we need to convert empty properties,I've talked about how we need to give council thefreedom to build homes, they know best where homes areneeded. I see in a lot of our city centres, these flatswhich are designed for one person, the private propertydevelopers have put up these towers, lots of them arestanding empty, they shall be made available topfamilies. But I also think there is a role for good oldfashioned council housing, I know it's not fashionablethese days but I was very proud when I was up inNewcastle the other day to see the council has startedbuilding new houses (inaudible) because they help aswell. They might not help you and your family but themore housing you get in supply, the better foreverybody.I think there is a funny glitch in the VAT system atthe moment, you pay no VAT on new build greenfield sitesand so on but if you invest in your own home you're

charged the full VAT rate. I think it's better to havean equal VAT rate on both to encourage you to invest inour home but perhaps set it at a much lower rate thanthe top headline rate of VAT.MR BROWN: We're scratching beneath the surface now is therewould be VAT under new homes under a liberal policy.What I think is however right is we do as we've doneencourage local authorities to build and that's why lotsof local authorities are again building.What mergs senior shared equity, that is part rent,part buy, but it's a bank building society working withthe owner and gradually you buy up your house. I thinkthat's going to be far more popular, particularly foryoung people in the years to come. But the key to allthis is low interest rates, we have to keep interestrates low and we have kept interest rates low, evenduring this recession and have done so for the last fewyears. I want interest rates low for existinghomeowners and for people buying their own home. I'mafraid the liberal and Conservative policies are too biga risk to inflation and interest rates for the future.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: I am retired having worked all mylife and finding (inaudible) at some who haven't paidinto the system but abuse it by living off statebenefits. What are you going to do to prevent thatabuse?MR CLEGG: Well, I think one of the biggest issues whichI think is what you're touching on is how do weencourage people who are on benefits to move into work?I was really delighted at the Institute of FiscalStudies when they compared the three parties' manifestosthis week, said very clearly and very directly that ourproposal to lift the income tax threshold to £10,000 isthe best incentive to work because if you keep more ofyour money when you start working, particularly on lowpaid work and part-time work, then you have an incentiveto get off benefits. There are too many people whoI meet who say it's not worth my while to get offbenefits because housing benefit gets withdrawn soquickly as soon as you start earning money that actuallywhen the sums are done and quite rightly people look atthis very closely, they think it isn't worth me working.We need to give incentives to work, our plan would dothat. I believe in work, I think work is one of themost important things in society. It gives peopleself-respect and I want to encourage it. That's whatour tax proposals would do.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Parken's question was that he finds itgalling that some who haven't paid into the system abuseit by living off state benefits.MR BROWN: No life the dole H that's my policy. Get peopleoff unemployment benefit and they're going to be forcedto work if they've been on unemployment benefit fora period of time. We're giving an offer to young peopleunder 25, if you've been unemployed for six months,

we'll give you training because we don't want theunemployment of 1980s for young people. We don't wantto lose a labour market for future and we don't wanta lost generation. We're saying you're compelled towork, you cannot take this as an option, you're going tohave to take up the job and training. That's true forthe long term unemployed, it's true for people who havebeen young persons unemployed for six months. We'realso doing a great deal of getting people on incapacitybenefit back to work, record numbers of people are nowmoving back to work, not enough but we're trying to doit. I believe in work to, because I've been brought upthat work is the way you reward people but it's alsoself-estem. My Britain is one where I want more peopleworking without being on benefits.MR CAMERON: What I would say to Graham very simply is weshould have a very straightforward approach, we shouldsay to people, if you can work and if you want to work,we will do everything we can to help you. We'll get youthe training, we'll get you what you need but if you'reoffered a job that you can do and you don't take it, youcannot go on taking your benefits. We have to say no tothat.The Prime Minister has just said, no life on thedole but we've had 13 years of a Labour government andthere are 5 million people on out of work benefits.There are still 3 million people almost on incapacitybenefit. They've had so long to do something aboutthis. Here we are tonight talking about the need to cutwaste and the need to cut budgets. Shouldn't we startwith people who can work but refuse to so people don'thave to feel like Graham does. I have so many people inthis campaign, I go to work and I walk past houses whereI know people could work and choose not to. That's justnot acceptable.MR DIMBLEBY: Chas your chance, Nick Clegg, not to repeatbut respond to what the others have said.MR CLEGG: It's a power word, you find it galling, I guessone of the reasons you might -- did you say you hadretired, just nod, when you had retired, you then findthat the benefits you get, particularly the statepension aren't as generous as I think they should be.That's why one of the things we need to do immediatelyafter this general election is restore the earnings linkin pension. There has been a huge amount of talk aboutit from both of the old parties, about doing that, let'sget on and do it, it was broken some years ago by theConservative government, hasn't been restored under 13years of the Labour government. Let's get on and dothat. The least you deserve when you retire, havingworked hard, having paid into the common pot, is thatyou get a decent state pension when you retire. AndI hope that would do something to make that experienceyou're talking about a little less galling.MR DIMBLEBY: The question was about preventing the abuse of

state benefits.MR BROWN: He's absolutely right that pensions should belinked to earnings and we'll do that in 2012 when wehave the resources to do so. We'll also (inaudible) forpeople over 80. We're trying to do our best to createa new regime for pensioners where women particularlyhave a full state pension which they haven't had the inthe past.To come to benefits, we're making it a condition foryoung people, they have to take a job, we're making ita condition now for people long term unemployed thatthey have to take a job. Yes we have two and a halfmillion more people in work than in 1997 and yes singleparents are working now and yes we have more youngpeople in training and education than we've had beforebut yes also we have got to go further and these are themeasures of compulsion ^^.MR CAMERON: Labour have had 13 years to develop it andliberals have nothing in their manifesto virtually.(inaudible) people who have worked hard, saved, putmoney aside, when they go into residential care, theyhave to pay every penny including selling their homewhereas people who haven't saved get the whole thingpaid for free. I would love to make it all free but youcan't, no money. So we say if you can put aside £8,000when you turn 65 you get your care for free. That wouldremove one of the major unfairnesses, it doesn't solvethe whole problem but it does remove one of the bigunfairnesses in our system now.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: What do you ^^.MR CLEGG: Let me perhaps draw out one of them. We're theonly party actually in this general election campaignwho have a plan, fully costed to get people off benefitsand into work and that's been independently recognised.I think there's a general almost philosophical issuehere, do you feel the best way to help people who arevulnerable or poor is to constantly give them morebenefits through greater dependency on the state or doyou provide incentives to let them help themselves whenthey can. That is a very radical tax switch, keep moneywhen you start working would do it, get people off thatbenefits dependency and into work. I think that's whatmost people agree is the absolute priority these days.MR BROWN: You what the difference is because we ^correctionyou know what the difference is we don't wanta generation of people growing up not working, they lefta generation, Conservatives, a wasted generation andwe're dealing with the consequences. Every young personshould be in training, at university or preparing forthat training and everybody should be compelled to doone of these things. You can't have a something fornothing society anymore and under 25s will have to takeup of work or training if they're not employed. That'sthe best way to do it but we have to get young peopleinto work. We cannot have a situation where they're on

the street corners and we cannot have a (inaudible)including our jobs fund that is designed to stop youthunemployment in the country. I think the ConservativeParty are still living in the 1980s, same old Tories.MR CAMERON: I'm a little unsure about which country GordonBrown thinks he's Prime Minister of. In Britain todaythere are 900,000 young people not in employment, not intraining, not in education. He's caused record youthunemployment. We see it 40 per cent higher than when hecame to power in 1997 after the longest and deepestrecession in our history. To talk about it as if hesomehow has a magnificent economic record SocialServices nonsense.It's outrageous today that ^^ taken away by thestate but you do need a penalty so we say to people, ifyou go on refusing the offer of a job you can do, youshould lose your entitlement to benefits for up to threeyears. I think that is important. You need to havethat as well as the incentive to encourage people out towork.MR CLEGG: We all agree with that, we all agree benefitsshould be conditioned. We all agree they shouldn't bedished out for free if people refuse to take up work.We all agree. Where we disagree is that I have a planto make sure that taxes reward work when you start work,particularly on -- to get you off benefits. DavidCameron's priority is to give tack breaks to doublemillionaires and Gordon Brown has no plans to lowertaxes for people on ordinary incomes and low incomes.That's a big difference, it's a big choice.MR BROWN: But the Institute of Fiscal Studies you werequoting a few minutes ago says that your proposals forfinancing your tax cut are highly speculative. Theydon't know how you're going to get the money, that'swhat they say about your proposals. You're too biga risk on the economy just like David is. We are tryingto get people back to work in difficult situations, lowinterest rates, get the economy moving, don't take moneyout and a shrink the economy now, that's the way to getpeople back to work.QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR: I teach in a very deprived area ofBirmingham. What will each leader do to ensure thechildren I teach have as many opportunities in life as(inaudible).MR DIMBLEBY: Education is a policy topic devolved from(inaudible) but I think the question goes wider, whatwill you do to ensure these children have a goodopportunity in life (inaudible).MR BROWN: My mother used to say that when I was growing up,what was available for a mother and for a parent wasmaternity services when a child was born, then you werecalled for vaccination, for these different vaccinationsand then you were told to come to primary school at theage of 5. Now we have nursery education, 3 to 4-yearold, now we have sure start children centres, 3 and

a half thousand now, round the country and now we havematernity pay and paternity pay and child tax creditsand we are moving forward by making the child tax crediteven higher for the parents of under 3-year olds.That's the sort of way we can help give chances but I'minterested in social mobility so you have to helpchildren under 5 develop their potential, you have tohelp people at school if they fall behind, you have toencourage people to stay on at school and get educationand we can have new middle class jobs in this countrywhere young people from poor backgrounds can get theopportunities they've never had before. That's thesocial mobility that I want to promote is all about.MR CAMERON: First of all I would like to say a big thankyou for what you do because I think teachers perform themost incredibly work in our society and we should domore to value them, to respect them and to raise theirstatus.I think one of the most important things we shoulddo is give the teacher and head teacher in particularcontrol back over their school. Discipline is theabsolute foundation of a good education and right now itjust doesn't work. We have something like 17,000attacks each year on teachers and you get kids who canbe excluded from school, including one in Manchester whois excluded for having a knife, who then gets put backinto the school by the appeals panel. That's just notright. So we say make the head teachers captain oftheir ships, let them have proper discipline, change allthe crazy rules that stop teachers searching for banneditems and make sure you have proper discipline. Then weneed to raise aspiration as I'm sure you do in ourschool and open up education and have the big societywhere we say new bodies that want to come in and set upgreat schools, come on in, we want choice, diversity andexcellence in our state sector, that's where I send mychildren and we have to do better than we do today.MR DIMBLEBY: The question is about a teacher teaching ina deprived area of Birmingham, how do you ensure asa leader that they will have the same opportunities inlife as those from any other school. Nick Clegg?MR CLEGG: Michael, in specific answer to your question,what we want to do, and we've set it out, one of thebiggest pledges in our manifesto, is to take£2.5 billion from the £15 billion of savings that we'vealready identified elsewhere in government saving sothat we can raise the money given to pupils, the millionpoorest children, some of the children that Michael istalking about, to the same level which children get ifthey go to fee-paying schools. I think the issue thatMichael has risen is one of the biggest that faces us asa country.At the moment, a poor but bright child, the latestevidence shows, gets overtaken in the classroom bya less bright but wealthier child about the age of 7 and

after that the gap widens. It even affects lifeexpectancy. A child born in a poor area is likely todie a decade and a half before a child born in thewealthiest neighbourhood up the road. That needs tochange. We have a plan to deliver more one to onetiewtion, smaller class sizes, to help those children inthe crucial early years when they start school.MR BROWN: I'm very pleased this question is about teachingand from a teacher because you never forget yourteacher, you remember your teacher, you remember whatthey did for you and teachers are so important. I wantany underperforming school to be taken over by a goodschool and that's what we're trying to do at the moment.You can't escape this fact about poverty, if you cutchild tax credits, if you child for nursery education,if you cut the schools budget, then you put the futureof these young children at risk. The Liberals andConservatives want to cut child tax credits, David alsowants to charge for nursery education, at the same timehe wants to cut the schools budget which we wouldcontinue top finance and therefore he's making thepeople who are the poorest pay the costs of his policieswhile he still has this ridiculous policy of inheritancetax.MR CAMERON: I think you've heard it all from a PrimeMinister who just has absolutely nothing left positiveto say. 13 years, 13 years of economic failure,13 years sadly of quite a lot of educational failure,13 years in which inequality has got worse, in whichdeep poverty has got worse, in which they haven't got togrips with the problems and that's what you hear.Let me give you some positive things that we woulddo. You have to make the basics right, teachingchildren to read and write using the old fashioned simforgottenic system works best. Setting ability. Youaccept that every child is not the same, let's stretchthe brightest pupils and help those who are fallingbehind.I had a big argument this week with someone on thepavement about special needs education, I want everychild to have a choice between special education andmainstream education but please let's stop closing thespecial schools that do so much for families in ourcountry. Education is about the basics, yes, it's alsoabout then aspiration, saying to every child no matterwhere they come from you can go all the way according toyour talent. That's what education should be like andthat's what it would be under our government.MR CLEGG: Of course Gordon Brown is right to say there'sa link and Michael you know this better than we do., youknow there's a link between poverty at home andunderperformence in the classroom. That link is holdingback so many children, that's what's unfair and thatlink is the link I want to help solve. We would do itpartly through the tax proposals I've talked about

earlier, giving people £700 back in their pocket byraising income tax threshold to £10,000 so that peopleon ordinary incomes who aren't being helped at themoment are helped and through our proposal, we call it,a slightly tech no accurateic phrase, we call it a pupilpremium, extra money, 2 and a half million pounds, thatwould for instance allow our schools to reduce theaverage class size in an average school down to 20.I have three young children, two of them go to a localschool, 8 and 5. I see for myself as a father that whathappens to a young child in reception class is toimportant in developing their self-confidence, socialskills, willingness to learn. Get it right at thatearly age and we can help people later in life. That'swhat I believe in.MR BROWN: I feel passionate about opportunities for infantsand young children. That's why we've introduced thechild tax credit, created the children centre, that'swhy nursery is at 3 now and not as before at 4. That'swhy we're financing personal tiewtion for people in theschools so that if they fall behind they can catch upbut I do say all this is at risk because David is notanswering the question. He's going to cut child taxcredits, he's going to cut the schools budget, he'sgoing to cut nursery education by charging for it and hehas a coalition cut with Nick on child tax credits,they're going to cut in the future. That is not the wayto deal with the problem that our questioner, who is soconcerned about opportunities for children, has raised.You can't solve the problem by taking away all thevanses we've made.MR CAMERON: I think people will see straight through thatas an attempt to try and frighten people. I have twochildren, my eldest is at a state school in London andI want every penny of the education budget to followchildren like mine across the playground and into theschool and I say after 13 years of a Labour government,there's a lot of waste we can cut out. There is quangosin education that spend £300 million a year. There'sthe fact that head teachers get 4,000 pages ofinformation a year. The department of children schoolsand families spent £3 million on itself including, andI'm not making this up, a massage suite anda contemplation room. I know that working in thisgovernment can be tough but really we don't need thosesorts of things. Cut the waste, get the money into theclassroom and pleas stop trying to frighten people.MR CLEGG: Let me try to disentangle some of these oldclaims and counterclaims. Of course Gordon Brown isright to say that the Conservatives -- I don't know whythey want to cut for instance the schools buildingprogramme, that's a very very silly thing to do. Weneed to continue to invest in our schools building butequally for Gordon Brown to constantly make these claimsabout tax credits, I come back to a simple thing, when

money is tight, surely if someone on my salary, a MP'ssalary could be entitled to have tax credits, why don'twe focus that money on where it's really needed and alsouse the money that we can save elsewhere, as I explainedto Michael, to invest in those individual children whoneed that individual care. It could be Saturday morningclasses, evening classes, one to one tiewtion, smallerclass sizes, all the thing that I know as a parent eaMichael no doubt knows as a teacher makes the mostdramatic difference to a child.MR BROWN: (inaudible) under your proposals.MR DIMBLEBY: We have to bring this part of the debate to anend there with that question. Thank you very much allthree of you.Now, we end with final statements from each of thethree party leaders, David Cameron to start. David?MR CAMERON: Thank you. I'm standing here for a very simplereason, that I love this country and I think we can doeven better in the years ahead. We can go on, solve ourproblems and do great things but we need a governmentwith the right values. We need a government that backsfamilies and understand that the family is the mostimportant thing in our society. We need a governmentthat backs work and people who try to do the right thingand we need a government that always understands thatkeeping us safe and secure is the most important thingof all. But there's something else you need to knowabout me which is I believe the test of a good andstrong society is how we look after the most vulnerable,the most frail and the poorest. That's true in goodtimes but it's even more true in difficult times. Andthere will be difficult decisions but I want to lead usthrough those to better times ahead. I think I've gota great team behind me, I think that we can do greatthings in this country. If you vote Labour, you'regoing to get more of the same. If you vote liberal, aswe've seen tonight, it's just uncertainty. If you voteConservative on Thursday, you can have a new freshgovernment make making a clean break and taking ourcountry in a new direction and bringing the change weneed.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you for Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg.MR CLEGG: Everything I've said during these threetelevision debates is driven by my simple belief that ifwe do things differently we can build a better, fairerBritain. As you decide how to cast your vote, of courseyou'll be told by these two that real change isdangerous, that it can't be done but don't let anyonescare you from following your instincts. Together nextweek we can change Britain for good. Just think howmany times you've been given lots of promises from theseold parties and then when they get back into governmentyou find that nothing really changes at all. We can doso much better than that this time.Of course I can't guarantee you that all the

problems you face will be solved overnight but I canguarantee you that I will work tierlsly to deliverfairness for you. Fair taxes so that you pay less, thepeople at the top pay their fair share. A smaller classsize for your children, a different approach to theeconomy and decent open politics that you can trust onceagain.I believe all this can happen, this is yourelection. This is your country. When you go to votenext week, choose the future you really want. If youbelieve like I do that we can do things differently thistime, then together we really will change Britain.Don't let anyone tell you that it can't happen. It can.This time you can make the difference.MR DIMBLEBY: Thank you, Mr Clegg. And now for Labour,Gordon Brown.MR BROWN: These debates are the answer to people who saythat politics doesn't matter and I want to thankeverybody who has been involved in these gates over thelast few weeks. ^correction debates over the last fewweeks. They show there are big causes to fight for,they also show there are big differences between theparties. I know that if things stay where they are, ineight days' time, David Cameron perhaps supported byNick Clegg would be in office but I've had the duty thisevening of telling you the Conservatives would put therecovery immediately at risk (inaudible). I've askedDavid and Nick questions all evening. David has notbeen able to confirm that it is the case thatinheritance tax will go to the richest people in thecountry. I believe he's planning to cut the schoolsbudget and he hasn't denied it. I believe child taxcredits would be done by both parties if they came intoa coalition. I believe too that policing would be atrisk in a Conservative government because they have notsaid they would match us on policing either. Under thehealth service that we have that gives every cancerpeasht the right to see a specialist in two weeks, thatwould be scrapped by the Conservative government if theycame into power.I don't like having to do this but I have to tellyou that things are too important to be left to riskypolicies under these two people. They are not ready forgovernment because they have not thrawt through theirpolicies. We are desperate to get this country throughthe recession and into the recovery and that is whatI want to continue to do but it's up to the people todecide and it's your decision.MR DIMBLEBY: Mr Brown thank you. And indeed thank you toall three party leaders who have taken part in thisdebate and to our audience here.I hope that the debate here along with the other twomay have helped you to decide where to put your crossnext Thursday. I'm going to be back with question timeafter the news here on BBC1, among other things to

discuss this very debate but from the Great Hall ofBirmingham University, goodbye.(Applause)