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General election 2024 live: Cleverly quizzed on Conservative Party's national service plan - BBC News General election 2024 live: Cleverly quizzed on Conservative Party's national service plan - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Let's take you over to West Yorkshire, where we've just heard from Rachel Reeves. The first weekend of the general election campaign is drawing to a close, and so we'll also be pausing our coverage . Here's what we've learned so far over a busy first few days:
The shadow chancellor largely repeated comments she made on Laura Kuenssberg earlier - including ruling out increases in income tax and national insurance, no return to austerity, and a commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP "as quickly as possible". The Conservatives have pledged to introduce a mandatory scheme for 18-year-old's requiring them by law to complete community work or apply for a selective number of places on military training courses
She also repeated her comments that the Conservatives' national service plan was "an expensive gimmick". Home Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC no one will be sent to prison for refusing to take part in the programme, while Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves dismissed the policy as a "gimmick"
Reeves told campaigners that she is “under no illusion about [the] scale of the challenge” she faces if she becomes chancellor. Reeves also told the BBC Labour will not increase income tax or national insurance if the party wins the election on 4 July
“With me all of our plans will be fully-funded and fully-costed, I will never play fast and loose with the public’s finances,” she says. Sir Keir Starmer has also given a clear signal votes for over-16s will be in the Labour manifesto
As a reminder, while on Kuenssberg earlier, the shadow chancellor was pressed specifically about how the party planned to fund its policies, and while she said she did not want to make any cuts to public funding, she did not rule out some spending cuts. Lib Dems leader Ed Davey outlined two key policies for his party: investments in primary care and social reforms to support people out of hospital
There will be much more to cover over the coming weeks, but rest assured that we'll be right here bringing you all the latest news and analysis throughout.
This page was written by Sean Seddon, Vicky Wong, Seher Asaf, Jennifer McKiernan and was edited by Johanna Chisholm and Emily Atkinson. Thank you for joining us.
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