iver been talking to president obama and france and germany are a part of it because i don't want a race to the bottom and banks moving out of this country. northern rock failed. it was a small bank. hsbc is successful and it is a big bank. it is not the size of the banks. it is the way they were run. you are planning to cut corporation tax for banks in your manifesto and take money from investment allowances and manufacturing industries in this region and give a corporation tax cut to the banks, that again i'm afraid is the same old tori party. . .

>> i need we think to impose the 10% tax. under our tax system in this country, the banks can offset the tax they are supposed to pay against losses they have already made. that means that for some bags they're not paying any tax at all, even though we built the mouth and the only tax they will pay would be this 10% levy which eight should be on their

profits. >> we are taking the money back from the banks and will insist on doing so. beyond the shares of the two big banks, we will recoup that volume for the company -- for the country. wheat nationalized them to get the profit women sell on the shares of a future date. we will continue to fight for global levee and that will happen this year but it will happen in the way the banks will leave our country -- will not leave our country, they will stay in our country. he didn't ask the question on inheritance tax and corporation tax he will cut by three pence. why is he cutting corporation tax for the banks but wants to make sure the banks pay their share? this is taken from manufacturing industry. it is the same old conservative party. >> we want to get the money off the banks that all of us have had to put it to the bank.

do i want to cut taxes on all businesses to get the economy moving? you're damn right i do we have to get this economy moving or we will might get the jobs and investment and wealth we need. right now, this is not working. small businesses come to me and said i have never gone over my overdraft limited but i cannot get a loan. we have stopped these banks full of money and they are not lending and we need action from government that will stop trying to defend it hopeless record and recognize we need change. >> let's move on very we have a question from jean simpson, please. >> said many businesses are being shut down and have gone how how you propose to rebuild the country's manufacturing industry.

? we can't just have offices and shops. >> i strongly agree with you. i am man mp from sheffield with in industrial heritage. we have to get the bank's lending. if you don't get the bank's lending to manufacturing companies, it is like body without blood circulating in it. one company manufactures environmentally sustainable lighting fixtures. they have lots of demand- but they can't expand because the banks will not lend to them at reasonable rates. the banks that we do lead less money last year than the year before. they should be lending more. after all, it is your money that build the mouth. we need to invest in the kind of things we need in the future anyway. affordable dozen, green energy, renewable energy, public transport -- this creates jobs for young people, helps

manufacturing, and creates the greek economy. >> i visited a manufacturer today who is involved in selling to the rest of the world including to china and asia with the most advanced precision manufacturing. i believe over the next few years, we can create 400,000 jobs and ee biotechnology as well as advanced manufacturing can see 100,000 jobs but we as a government are investing with these companies in the equipment they need for the future. i am optimistic about the future of the british economy. i am optimistic about this region. i would insist that the banks do lend and that is why we have appointed an arbitrator or people are dissatisfied with the bags, they can go to them and we will back them up. we will continue to give investment allowances which

would be abolished by the conservatives and we will maintain the regional development agencies which the conservatives want to remove. it is important that we back regional manufacturing. >> just a reminder, this area used to be full of businesses that made it. so many of them have been shut down or sold off and gone abroad. i want to know how you plan to rebuild the country's manufacturing industries? we cannot just of offices and shops. >> i placentia's absolutely right. here we are in birmingham. in the last 13 years, we have lost 60,000 jobs in manufacturing. we have been losing manufacturing faster than the 1980's. this is a complete tragedy. we have to rebuild. let's start with investing in our science and nature great universities like this are producing the scientists and entrepreneurs of the future. so much of the government's

training budget is wasted. let's have an extra 200,000 apprenticeships but you cannot ignore the basics. we have to make it easier for businesses to employ people. if we keep putting up the cost of one person saying to another person to come work for them, we will never get less unemployment. we want to make sure we reward of entrepreneurship. >> how you respond to the art prints of the other two, nick clegg. n+ñ>> we must agree on developig new technologies. young people are developing vocational qualifications for the skills of the future. all the parties agree on that. unless you've got banks helping

businesses, it is extremely difficult for them to expand their products and invest in the factories and invest in creating new jobs. who would of thought in birmingham all places that the banks like rbs should have used that money to help fund the multinational take over of cadbury's. ? did you think that money was -- should have been used to put people out of work in britain? >> we have increased the number of apprenticeships from 70,000 to 200,000 and we want to raise that number. there are more students going to university than ever before in our history and our employees to say the majority of students are now women. the regional development agencies have the power to

support individual businesses and is more than 20,000 firms receiving help with cash flow under our program "time to pay." you cannot hope that businesses can survive. you have to keep the money in the economy. you cannot take investment allowances away from businesses to pay for the corporation tax cut without manufacturing suffering. you cannot help the region if you take with the regional development agency that is doing some good. we have to face up to the fact that we have to act now. we cannot take money out of the economy and we have to support manufacturing and not withdraw the support that david would do with his policies. >> there is this complete confusion between the government and the economy. gordon brown does not seem to understand that to get the economy going, you've got to help businesses employ people. you have to cut the red tape and regulations.

government is an enormous purchaser of goods and services and get it hardly buys anything from small and medium-size enterprises. we say government should give 1/4 of its contracts to the small firms, the ones that will be the success stories of tomorrow. let's make it easier for them to register with the government so they can buy services and sell services to the government. that would help get them going, the great business as of tomorrow. >> let's discuss these points that have been made. >> i want to come back to this point about how one takes the right decision to support the new technologies, the new manufacturing industries of the future. if you look at the huge number of odd -- offshore wind turbines off the coast of britain, we should be a world leader in manufacturing this in the green technology. the only manufacturer of offshore wind turbines has

recently closed. one of the biggest offshore wind projects off the coast of kent, 90% of the installations was built in denmark and germany. we should manufacture the new green technology. >> thank you. >> wind turbines and the development of the altar with the industry is one of our priorities. ypçwe are now the world's leadig offshore wind power. we are doing the same for digital because we want 100% broadband in this country that will serve every community including the rural areas. you have to have some government finance to persuade people to is necessary to go to one of the% and not 70%. we are investing substantially in biotechnology.

i come back to this point that if you cut investment allowances and cut the regional development agencies which are a symbol of what the regions can do themselves and if you do that to cut corporation tax for back, you are putting the manufacturing industry at risk in doing the opposite of what is needed now. >> cutting corporation tax for banks -- i want to cut corporation tax for all firms to help them keep more of their profits and reinvest and expand and take people on. that is what a growing economy needs. right now, we are stuck. after 13 years, we have one of the lowest shares of renewable energy than any come -- country in europe. ninth ministry -- nine energy ministers and nothing ever happened. we need change for the government that understands business and feels the beating

heart of of entrepreneurs with and get things moving. >> why are you cutting investment allowances for manufacturing industry? why will you also take away the regional development agencies and scrap the functions? what does that do to those who want investment in manufacturing? >> we are cutting taxes for businesses and our forthcoming budget if we win the election. we will also say to every new business that starts up, the first 10 people you take on you should not have towñ pay nationl insurance contributions. that will get the economy moving. instead what we have with the current government are these the best regional bureaucracies paying themselves huge amounts of money and not actually helping the businesses. >> thank you very much. we are almost halfway through this debate. we have a number of other topics to come to apart from the economy. before we do, these three parties represented here tonight

are not the only ones in the united kingdom asking for your vote next week. if you live in scotland, you'll be able to hear from then snp. on sunday at 9:00 p.m. on bbc one, the scotland leaders go head-to-head. if you are in the whales, you can hear your leader in wellale. the leaders will debate on sunday at 9:00 and bbc one wales. there will be a debate between the northern island four main parties next tuesday on b b c one northern ireland. finally we will hear from yucat and the greens after this debate. here's another question -- all

the politicians aware they have become removed from the real people and why don't you remember that you are there to serve us not ignore us. ? >> the only reason i can into politics was because i saw what was happening in my local community and i had the good fortune of being a member of parliament for the people i grew up with. the reason i want to be in politics is to create jobs. when it comes to immigration, i want to see a situation where we increase the number of jobs that people trained as we lower the numbers of people coming into this country. that is why we abandon unskilled workers from outside europe to from coming to britain. that is also why we are cutting the numbers of simi-skilled and skilled workers the comment. we have a list of occupations we now want to preserve for people in britain and not for people coming from abroad. we are training on people -- our

people so that as we move forward out of this recession, the jobs will go to people trained in britain and that goes right across all occupations. that is where we want to bait. >> i agree with the questionnaire. immigration in this country has been too high for too long. that is what we have a very clear approach to cutting it substantially. in these last 13 years, or 1 million extra people have been given citizenship, that is like another of city of birmingham all over again. we say you need to control a properly. new countries that joined the european union should have transition controls so not everyone can come here at once. when it comes to outside the european union, there needs to be a cap. i want to get back with situation where the net number of people coming into the country is in the tens of thousands, not as it has been,

in the hundreds of thousands. one benefit of that is that we can better integrate people into our country, build a stronger society, and we would not hear about people or about emigration because they know the government would have listened. >> let me remind listeners and viewers -- our politicians aware they have become removed from the concerns of real people, especially on immigration, and why don't you remember you were there to serve us, not ignore us? >> of course you are right. 9i hear people's concerns about immigration all the time. the reason i think people have become so anxious is because the immigration system itself, the way it works, has become absolutely chaotic.

it was conservative and labour government that moved the exit controls. we don't know who is coming in but we also don't know who should be leaving as well. i think we have to have a regional approach that if people come and work here, they are not date -- they should not be allowed to work in regions where there is no work. we need to deal with the criminal gangs that were exploiting the illegal immigrants who came in because of the chaos and the system. that is a fair, effective, workable approach that is dealing with something that is a tremendous public concern. >> gordon brown. >> i come back to the question of how we best serve people including immigration and i want to create jobs for people in this country. in my constituency in birmingham and the west midlands, people or

about their jobs and job security and there were about whether the children can get a job. i want to give a guarantee to every young person under 25 that if they are unemployed for a few months, they will get a job. want to say two adults, there are 50,000 jobs available under the putrid jobs fund. i want to protect people in jobs by the tax credit system so if you are on short time, you can get extra money from tax credits. i want to make sure there are jobs for people in britain and train people to do these jobs. as far as immigration, to tackle illegal immigration, we have four and a national id cards and we will be counting people in and out of the country. i want to see that action working by the measures we bring in. >> david cameron -- >> we have to improve the system but we have to get a grip on the numbers. people need to know what our in our manifest this.

people need to know that the liberal democrats propose an amnesty for in a -- for immigrants. that could mean six and a thousand people here illegally would be allowed to stay here and given full citizenship with access to welfare and bring their relatives each into our country. i think that just does not make sense. that is a complete mistake that would make a bad situation after 13 years of labor even worse. let's talk about this problem sensibly and bring emigration down to more manageable levels and i think the public will respond by making this not an issue of future elections. >> i am not advocating amnesty. the only politician advocating a blanket and -- amnesty is boris johnson parte.

this problem will not go awayá÷. there are people who are living here for years in the shadows of our societies. they create crime in our communities. when we deal with something as sensitive as immigration, let's at least be open about it. david cameron says you can put a cap on immigration. that is complete nonsense. 80% of people coming to this country come from the european union. you cannot cap those numbers. you should not pretend to people and give them false hope you can bring numbers down when you cannot control them in that way. it is want to raise false hopes on such a sensitive topic. it's clear the liberal democrats proposed an amnesty. one of the respected bodies have criticized them for that.

we should try to encourage people and reward people for doing the right thing. if you have an amnesty for illegal immigration, you are saying to people who came here illegally that it is ok. to the people lining up to what to do the right thing, they are being punished. that is wrong in our country. we need a different set of values and this is not then. it does not make sense. >> i can't see how you send out other things on the worst possible message if you give amnesty to people come here illegally. i do not think nick has presented its policy problem because there is a suggestion of policy of amnesty after 10 years. this message is wrong because it incurred as other people to behave legally. david said there should be a cap but he did not give a figure. the conservative party is

concealing something they should tell us or said they will not do it properly. >> i did not create the problem. conservative labor governments create chaos in the new emigration system so many people came here illegally. they are here now and it's a problem. i think we have to deal with it. i say that for those who have been here for one decade who speak english and want to play by the rules and want to pay taxes and come out of the shadows and do community service, it is better to get them out of the habit of being criminals so we can go after the criminals. i am coming up with a proposal that deals with the way the world is. get real. this is a problem you created and we need to sort it out on a

one-off basis. this needs a solution. >> i think it is profoundly misguided. nick has talked about 600,000 people having this amnesty and being able to stay. would they would be able to bring over one relative each. that is 1.2 million people. >> why don't we say -- every time you talk about our policy it is wrong. we have to deal with it. we have to get them out of the house of criminals. can you now tell me that 80% of people i come here come from the european union and your cap would make no difference to that, yes or no? >> we would have transitional controls. we remember what happened when poland and joined the european union.

close to a million people came here. >> its 600,000 is the number, they should come clean about that. >> do members of the european union come here, yes or no? >> i think we should have mr. brown in on this. >> both of them have got this wrong. nick is wrong to send a message that you can come here illegally and you can get amnesty. david is wrong to include a cap. he would make it impossible for some businesses to recruit people from abroad during the course of the year and he has never given us a number for the cap. tell us what the kappas or stop -- tell us what the cap is or stop talking about it at all.

>> we would like to see immigration intense of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands since gordon has been in government, it has never been lower than 100,000. >> you are not answering the question. >he won't answer the question about what the cap is and nick will not enter the question about the number of emigrants. it does not make sense. >> let me repeat again -- this was a problem that you created. people came here illegally because of the chaos of your government. we have to deal with it. it would be easier for me to pretend to is not a problem. it is a problem and it is helping criminals. i want to get those people in the hands of the tax man. if they should not be here, they should be deported. you don'tuz know even how to do that.

>> we get scores of criminals out of the country every year. >> we have to move onto the next question. >> i am married. my husband is an accountant and we have two children we work really hard and between us we have a good joint wage yet we still cannot afford our own family home or the large deposit necessary these days. what will your party to to help with housing? if a chartered accountant is priced out of the market, what hope is there for anyone else? >> i have every sympathy because today in our country, people who try to work hard and save and obey the rules and do the right thing, they often find hurdle after hurdle put in their whereas people who do not play by the rules and do not think about saving and don't think about this get rewarded.

that is not right. we've got to get spending under control so we stop putting your taxes up. we also said we should have no stamp duty on the first 150,000 pounds. if you can buy property for less than that, that would help. we need to build more houses. there is no doubt in my mind that we have to change the planning system right now. we think you need to scrap these top-down targets the reward councils that go ahead and build homes for families like yours. >> along with immigration, this is one of the things i hear about more than anything else, the lack of affordable housing. people in your situation -- are in your situation but there are 5 million people still waiting for an affordable home. i would do three things, there

are hundreds of thousands of empty properties in our community is boarded up, no doubt there are many in birmingham, too, you could convert this into homes that people could live in. it is not right. we have a plan in our manifesto to convince 250,000 homes that people can live in. i would give local councils more freedom to borrow against their assets in building new homes. >> the house building industry has not served us well in this country. when the crisis happened, the building firm did not have an of capital and were not able to survive and some money went under and yet there's a pent-up for demand for housing in our

country. there are 1 million more homeowners then there were over 10 years ago. most people are buying their homes. we have extended stamp duty release for first-time home buyers. that is available now. shared equity as another thing that might be considered. that is a more popular way of doing things and we can help finance that and work with the building societies and banks. the third thing is getting the building societies and the banks to lend again. we signed these agreements that require them to lend $92 billion last year. much of that as mortgages. the fourth thing is giving local authorities the power to build a making sure that housing associations have the power to build. i want toli create an owner- occupied majority in this country. i want to increase homeownership and to a with the measures we are doing. >> we should build more homes that are part grant/part

mortgage. that is a chance to get 1 foot on the housing ladder. also, rewarding responsibility -- people live in housing association homes are council calls with a record of good behavior, give them a stake in the house so when they moved, they have the start of capital to move up the housing ladder. one thing we should not do is put vat and building new homes. that would lift the price of new homes even higher. that is a big mistake which does not make any sense. >> i talked about how we need to fill the empty properties and build homes. in many of our great city centers, private property

developers have made homes available for honors. i think we should go back to good old council homes. i know that is not a popular idea. they have started building council houses because they help. the more housing you get in supply, the easier it is for everybody. i think there is a funny glitch in the vat that you pay nothing on greenfield sites but if you invest in your on home, you get a vat rate. in to set it at a lower rate. >> if we are scratching beneath the surface is that there would be vat and new homes under a liberal policy. i think we need to do as we have

done and encourage local authorities to build. the other thing that matters is what i called shared equity. that is part rent/part buy and gradual you buy up your house. that will be far more popular for young people in the years ahead. the key to all this is lower interest rates. we have to keep interest rates low and we have to keep them low during this recession and have done so the past couple of years. i want to blow for existing homeowners and those buying their own home. the liberal and conservative policies are too big a risk to inflation for the future. >> let's move onto another question -- >> i am retired having worked all my life. some who have not paid into the system abuse of by living upstate benefits. what are you going to do to

prevent the abuse? >> one of the biggest issues which is what you're touching on is how we encourage people to move into work. i was delighted when it was compared when they compared the three parties. our proposal to list the income tax over 10,000 pounds is the best incentive to work. if you keep all the money, particularly on low-paid work, you don't have an incentive to get off benefits. some people say it is not worth their while to get off benefits. we need to give incentives to work. i believe in court. i think it is one of the most important things in society. it gives people self-respect and i want to encourage it.

>> we've got to get people off of employment benefits and they will be forced to work of the have an unemployment benefits for a period time. we're giving an offer to young people under 25 that if you have been unemployed for six months, we will give you work or training because we do not want the unemployment of the 1980's for young people and lose a labor market for the future and we do not want it lost generation. we are saying that you are compelled to work for it is not an option. you have to take up the job of training. we're doing a great deal to try to get people on an incapacity benefit back to work. large numbers of people are moving back into work but not enough.

i was brought that work is a way reward people and find self esteem. i want more people working without being on benefits. >> we should have a straightforward approach. we should say to people that if you can work and if you want to work, we will do everything we can to help you. we will get to the training and what you need but if you're offered a job that you can't do and you don't take it, you cannot go on taking your benefits. the prime minister has just said there is no life on the doll. we've had 13 years of the labour government and there are 5 million people on out of work benefits. there aren't 3 million people on incapacity benefits. they have had a long time to do something about this. we're talking about the need to cut waste and budget. shouldn't we start with people who can work but refused to work to the people who have done the right thing -- people say

they go to work and people choose not to work. that is unacceptable and we need change to make that happen. >> when you retire, you find the benefits are not as generous as they should pay. one thing we need to do immediately after the general election is restore the earnings and pension. there has been a lot of talk about doing that. let's get on and do it. it was broken some years ago by the conservative government and has not been restored by the labor government. police that you deserve, gordon, after you retire and

everyone else is that you get a decent state pension when retired. i hope we can do something to make that experience less galling. >> he's absolutely right, the pension should be linked to earnings and we will do that in 2012 when we have the resources to do so. we have also introduced where someone is over 60 and that is 250 pounds and 400 pounds for people over 80. we want to create new regime for pensioners where women have a full state pension which they have not had in the past. this is a condition for young people. they got to take a job. we are making a condition for people who are long-term unemployed that they have to take a job. we have more young people in training and education than we have had a four but yes, we have to go further and these other

measures of compulsion, a requirement to work and their responsibility to work. >> when it comes to ending welfare dependency, labor has had 13 years of dealing with it and the liberal democrats have nothing in their manifesto. people who worked hard save and put money aside and they go to residential care and they have to pay every penny including selling their homes. most people who have not saved, get it for free. we say that if you cannot put aside 8,000 pounds when you turn 65, you should get your care for free. it does not solve the whole problem but removes one of the big blocks in the system. >> what a key to ivins is between your positions? >> -- what are the key differences between your positions? >> there is a plan to get people

off the fence and into work and what has been recognized. that is a philosophical issue. do you think the best way to help people who are more vulnerable is to constantly give them more benefits through greater dependency on the state or do you provide incentives to let them help themselves or they can? that requires a very radical tax switch which would get people off about the dependency and into work. most people agree that the priority these days. >> we do not want a generation of young people growing up and not working. that is what happened in the 1980's. they left the wasa generation and we beat -- we inherited the consequences. we say every young person should be in training with an apprenticeship or a college or university or preparing for that training. everyone should be compelled to

do one of these things. you cannot have a something for nothing society any more. people under 25 will have to take a boar or treading if they are unemployed ridgy if they are not employed. we cannot have a situation where young people are on street corners and we cannot have a conservative party that have job proposals that do not stop unemployment for the conservative party is living in the age of the 1980's and 1990 as. >> i am unsure as to which country gordon brown thinks he is prime minister of. there are 900,000 young people not in training or employment. he has caused a record unemployment. to talk about how he has a magnificent and employment record is ridiculous to is

outrageous that a single mom trying to go back to work as 95 pence of every pound she makes taken away by the state. you should lose our entitlement if you turn down a job that you can do. you need to have that as well as the incentive to encourage people back to work. >> we all agree with that. ñrwhere we disagree is that i he a plan to make sure that taxes reward work when you start work, particularly to get you off benefits. >> the institute of fiscal studies says that your proposals for financing a tax cut are

highly speculative. they don't know how you will get the money. you have to bigger risk of the economy we want to lower inflation and get the economy moving and don't shrink the economy now. >> let's go on to a question -- another question -- >> i live in a deprived area of birmingham. the students i teach have many disadvantages. >> education is a topic that devolved from england, scotland, wales, and northern ireland. what will you do to ensure that the children have the same opportunities in life in a deprived area than those from any other school? >> mother used to say that when i was growing up what was available for a mother and for a

parent was maternity services when the child was born, you get a vaccination, and then you were taught to go to primary school at the age of five. now we have reeducation 3-4 year olds, we have short stop children centers around the country, we have maternity pay and child tax credits and we are moving forward by making the child tax credit even higher for the parents of under 3 year olds. that is the sort of way we can help give chances. i am interested in social mobility. you have to help children under 5 develop potential. you have to have personal tuition at school when people fall behind. this is the way we can have a new generation of middle-class jobs in this country where young people move from poor backgrounds and get opportunities they have never had before. >> i would like to say a big

thank you for what you do. teachers do incredible work in our society and we should do more to value them and respect them and raise their status. one of the most important things we can do is give the teacher and the head teacher in particular control back over their school. discipline is the absolute foundation of a good education. right now, it just doesn't work. we have something like 17,000 -- 17,000 pounds of taxes on teachers. we say to make head teachers the captain of their shift. we want to make sure you have proper discipline. you need to open up education.

we want to set up great schools because we want choice, diversity, and the excellence. we have to do better than we have done today. >> the question is about a teacher teaching in a deprived area of birmingham and how do you insure as a leader they will have the same opportunities in life as the children from any other schools? >> what we want to do is take 2.5 billion pounds from the 15 billion pounds of savings that we have identified elsewhere in government spending so that weekend a rage the money given to pupils, the 1 million poorest children and raise them to the same level of children in other schools. this is were the biggest issues that face us as a country.

a child gets overtaken in the classroom by about the age of seven. after that, the gap tends to widen and it affects life expectancy. a child from the poorest neighborhood of sheffield, for instance, is likely to died a decade and a half before a child rates and the wealthiest neighborhood up the road. that has to change. we have a plan for smaller class sizes to help those children the most in a crucial early years. >> i am pleased that this question is about teaching. you never forget your teacher. you remember your teacher and remember what they did for you. i want any underperforming school taken over by a good school and that is what we're trying to do. you cannot escape the fact about poverty. if you cut tax credit, if you charge for unnecessary education, if you cut the school budget, you put the future of these young children at risk.

i am afraid the liberals and conservatives want to cut child tax credit david also wants to charge for nursery education. he wants to cut the school budget which we would continue to finance. he is making the people who are the poorest pay the cost of his policies while he still has this ridiculous problem with the inheritance tax. >> you ever heard from the prime minister who has absolutely nothing left positive to said. 13 years of economic failure, 13 years of a lot of educational fare year, 13 years in which inequality has gotten worse anti-poverty has gotten worse and that is what you hear. let me give you some positive things we would do. we've got to get the basics right. teaching children to read and write using the old fashioned phonics method works best. not every child is the same. let's stress the brightest

pupils and help those who are falling behind. i had an argument about special needs education this week. i want every child to have a choice between special education and mainstream education but let's stop closing schools that do so much for the families in our country. you can go all the way according to your town and that is what education would be like under our government. >> you know there is a link to poverty at home and underperformance in the classroom. it is that link that is holding back so many children. that is what is unfair and that link is the link i want to help solve. we would do a partly through the tax proposals i talked about and give people 700 pounds back in their pocket by raising the income tax threshold by 10,000 pounds.

it means extra money, 2.5 billion pounds, that would allow our schools to reduce the average prime school down to 20 in the classroom. get it right at that early age and we can really help people later in life. that is what i believe an. >> i felt passionate about opportunity for infants and young children. that is why we introduced the child tax credit and free the children's centers that are the focus of communities. we are financing private tuition for people in the schools of is they fall behind they can catch up. all this is at risk because david is not answering the

question. he will cut child tax credit and cut the school budget. he has a coalition for cuts on child tax credits for the future. that is not the way to deal with the problem that our questioner who is concerned about opportunities for children has raised. you cannot solve the problem by taking away all the advances we have made. >> i think people will seek stricter that as an attempt to try and frighten people. i have two children. my eldest is in may say school in london and i want every penny of the education budget to follow children like mine across the playground and the to the school. to 13 years of a labour government, there's a lot of ways we can cut out. head teachers get 4000 pages of information ever year. children's schools and families

spend 3 million pounds on itself including a massage to sweeten the contemplation room. we don't need those things. cut the ways to get the money into the classroom and stop trying to frighten people. >> of course, is right to say -- i don't know why the conservatives want to cut programs. we need to continue to invest in our schools but equally. gordon brown costly makes these claims about tax credits. it is not right that a person's mp money should get tax credits. we should invest in the individual children who need the individual care. it could be saturday morning class is, evening glasses, all

the things that i know as a parent makes the most dramatic difference to a child's education. >> 1 million children would lose tax credits from both of your proposals. >> we have to bring this part of the debate to an end. thank you very much all three of you. we end with final statements from each of the three party leaders. david cameron can start. >> i am standing here for a simple reason that i love this country and i think we can do even better in the years ahead. we can go on, solve our problems, and do great things but we need a government with the right managers. we need a government that backs families and understands the family is the most important thing in our society. we need a government that backs work and people who try to the white thing. we need a government that always understands the people feeling

secure is the most important thing of all. there's something else you need to know about me. i believe the test of a good and strong society is how we look after the multiple marble, the most frail, and a porous. that is true in good times but is even more true in difficult times. there will be difficult decisions but i want to lead us through those to better times ahead i think i have a great team behind me. i think we can do great things in this country. if you vote labor, you'll get more of the sacred if you vote liberal, to this uncertainty. if you poke in tehran thursday, you'll have a new french government's that will be a clean break and take the country and a new direction and bring the change we need. >> everything i said during these three television debates is driven by my simple belief that if we do things differently, we can build a better and fairer britain. if you decide how to cast your vote, you'll be told by these

two that change is dangerous and cannot be done. do not let anyone scary. from fall in your instincts. together next week, we can change britain for good. think how many times you have been given lots of problems from these policies and when they get back into government, nothing really changes at all. we can do so much better than that this time. of course, i cannot guarantee that all problems you face will be solved overnight. i can guarantee you that i will work tirelessly to deliver fairness. their taxes so you pay less than the top -- the people of the top pay their fair share size. smaller class size in schools. decent, open politics that contrast once again. i believe all this can happen. this is your election. this is your country. when you go to vote next week, choose the future you really

want. if you believe like the idea that we can do things differently this time, that together we really will change britain. don't let anyone tell you that it can't happen. it can carry this time, you can make the difference. >> felthe debates show there ara big cause we can fight for and big differences exist between the parties. if things stay where they are, perhaps in eight days' time, david cameron would be in office. i have had the duty of telling you this evening that while we have policies for the future, the conservatives with the recovery immediately at risk with an emergency budget. i have best questions all evening and they have not been

able to confirm that the inheritance tax would go to the richest people in the country. i believe david is planning to skip the school budget and the has not denied it. i believe the child tax credit would be cut by both parties of bacon into a coalition. the health provisions we have allows a cancer patient to say specials within two weeks would be scrapped. things are too important to the leftist risky policies under these two people. they are not ready for government because they have not fought for their policies. we are desperate to get this country through the recession and its recovery and that is what i continue to do. it is up to the people to decide and it is your decision. >> mr. brown, thank you and indeed thank you to all three party leaders who have taken part in this debate and our

audience here. i hope the debate here along with the other two may have helped you to decide where to put your cross next thursday. we will discuss this very debate on bbc following. from birmingham university, goodbye. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the cspan video library lincoln fact: there are almost

600 lincoln facts and our lincoln library. you'll find lots of interesting programs online as well. for contemporary perspective in print, there is the cspan book in paperback at your favorite book seller. up next on c-span is "washington journal"la live with your phone calls for the american jewish committee hosted a meeting about policy towards iran. the secretary of the navy will give a talk at the national press club later. coming up in 45 minutes, we will talk with the former commerce secretary about the new powers over immigration law and a look at the national job market with the ceo of an employment services firm. a reporter will talk about financial market regulations.