BBC election debate live: Sunak and Starmer clash over tax and border plans in final head-to-head before polling day | General election 2024

Sunak says Labour won’t rule out a council tax revaluation.

And, under Labour, every state pension will be subject to tax.

Starmer says: “Don’t insult me by putting up falsehoods.”

As Sunak keeps putting questions to Starmer, Starmer jokes that Sunak has put a bet on how many times he will interrupt him.

Sunak asks Starmer to confirm Labour won’t match the Tories’ pension triple-lock plus.

Starmer does not confirm that.

Sunak claims that means pensioners will have to pay tax on their pension under Labour.

Asked to explain why that is wrong, Starmer replies:

Pensioners are not going to be better off with the prime minister. He’s making promises that he can’t keep because they’re not funded.

Sunak and Starmer are now talking about small boats.

Sunak says he has a plan, and he claims Labour does not.

Asked what he would do, Starmer says arrivals are not being processed, which means they cannot be returned. They are here for life.

Sunak keeps asking Starmer “what will you do with them?” He says he will put them on planes to Rwanda.

Starmer says that will take 300 years at the rate he is proposing.

Sunak says these people come from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan. The idea of getting a returns agreement with the Taliban is “nonsensical”.

This gets a big round of applause.

Sunak says the situation will get worse under Labour.

Q: So you are promising to send hundreds of thousands of people to Rwanda?

Sunak says he will start flights in July.

And he says Starmer said, when he was running for Labour leader, that he approved of free movement.

Starmer says he wants to smash the gangs.

Sunak says the government passed a law to enable this. But Labour voted against this.

“Do not surrender our borders,” Sunak says.

Sunak says he wants to change the eligibility system for benefits.

But Starmer opposed those measures when he announced them, he says.

He says that is why welfare will be higher under Labour, and it won’t be able to afford tax cuts.

Starmer says the Tories have been in charge for 14 years. Why are they only doing this now?

Sunak says the election is about the future.

Q: Will the welfare bill be higher under you?

No, says Starmer. “It needs to come down.”

Sunak says the growth in the welfare bill is unsustainable. The choice is simple. “Higher taxes, higher welfare” under Labour, or the opposite under the Tories, he says.

Sunak says if people are offered work, and don’t take it, that is not acceptable. After 12 months, people will lose support, he says. That is why the Tories can save money from the welfare bill, he says.

Husain asks Starmer what is wrong with that.

Starmer says he accepts that principle.

Sunak says Labour opposed those plans.

Starmer tells Sunak (who has been interrupting a lot) that if he listened to people around the country, he would not be so out of touch.

(That was the first moment of the debate that felt like a direct hit.)

He says it can be hard for people to get back to work without support.

Husain asks Starmer if he knows no other Labour candidiate has made a similar bet.

Starmer does not answer directly. He says he has made it clear what standards he expects.

He says Sunak is not in a position to talk to people about integrity in politiics given he broke the Covid rules.

He says Labour is not being straight about its tax plans.

Starmer says he has set out his plans. He says the Tory plans are unfunded, because Jeremy Hunt has admitted that the money set aside in the manifesto has already been spent.

(That is a reference to Hunt saying welfare savings were behind the tax cuts announced in the autumn statement. The Tories are also saying welfare savings will pay for the manifesto plans.)

Sunak tells people to go to the Telegraph website, where there is a story about Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, saying decarbonising the economy will cost hundreds of billions of pounds.

Starmer says this is a reference to Labour wanting to get investors to invest in the UK economy.

This is how the Telegraph story (which, unusually, does not have a byline on it) starts:

Reaching Labour’s target for decarbonising the economy will cost “hundreds of billions” of pounds, a shadow minister has disclosed in a recording obtained by The Telegraph.

Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the £28 billion per year originally allocated to Labour’s green investment plan was a “tiny” amount.

He said the fact that Sir Keir Starmer had downgraded his investment plans from £28 billion to £4.7 billion “made it sound as if we basically junked the whole thing but we definitely haven’t”.

Mr Jones told a public meeting in Bristol that private capital would have to be used to upgrade infrastructure, but “public subsidy” would still be needed alongside that.

Sunak defends himself.

He says he set up an internal inquiry. When he got the results, he took action.

He says trust is also about doing what you say. But Starmer has “changed his mind on every major position he has taken”, and he is not being straight with people about his proposed tax rises.

Husain says Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer do not know what the questions will be. They will come mostly from the audience, she says.

And she starts with a question from Sue Barclay.

Q: People are dismayed by the lack of integrity in politics. How would you restore trust in politics?

Sunak tells Sue he shares her anger. He was frustrated and furious when he heard these allegations. He set up his own inquiry, and two candidates have been suspended.

Starmer says you have to lead from the front. Politics has become too focused on people thinking of themselves, not public service.

He says the instinct of the candidates was wrong. But it is also a failure of leadership. He mentions Partygate and the Covid inquiry. He suspended a candidate “within minutes” when he realised a candidate was being investigated by the Gambling Commission.