Författare: Laura Hood Senior Politics Editor Assistant Editor The Conve

We’re at around the midway point of the 2024 election campaign and the two main party leaders have undergone a grilling by Sky News. This was not a head-to-head debate but two separate interviews with Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby, followed by questions from the public.

Here we look over four of the policy areas that featured in the broadcast and assess how successfully the two leaders addressed the problems at hand.

1. Starmer: will Labour remove the two-child benefit cap?

Labour leader Keir Starmer was up first. He confirmed that he has no plans to end the two-child benefit cap. This will be a disappointment to those who had hoped Labour would change its position on this controversial policy before the election, after much pressure to to do so.

Currently in the UK, families can only claim benefits for two children. They receive no extra support for any subsequent children. An estimated 400,000 families are affected by this policy and experts have repeatedly warned that it makes the poorest families poorer, aggravating poverty rather than helping anyone. Experts writing for The Conversation over the years have been adamant that this policy is damaging and that Labour should not support it.

As this research found:

When the two-child limit was announced in 2015, 27% of children in larger families lived in low-income households, based on this measure, compared with 17% of children in smaller families. By 2019-20, after the introduction of the two-child limit, the larger family poverty rate had gone up to 37%. It remained at 17% for smaller families.

This can’t all be attributed to the cap but it has evidently played a part. Starmer says the decision is difficult but that the country currently can’t afford to lift the cap. There are arguments to be made that the policy punishes those in greatest need, however, and that he can’t afford not to lift it:

The End Child Poverty Coalition argues that scrapping the limit would be the most cost effective way of reducing child poverty, stating that for the estimated cost of £1.3 billion, a quarter of a million children would be lifted from poverty. If the Labour party is serious about breakding down the barriers to opportunity, abolishing the two-child limit should be the first thing they do, should they come to power.

2. Starmer: how can we get more NHS dentists?

An audience member raises the matter of dentistry and says she has been waiting for treatment for over a year. Starmer replied that this was a top priority for him and that he looks forward to getting on with dealing with this problem on his first day in government.

Starmer’s policies are to allow for 700,000 urgent appointments to be made available on the NHS and to incentivise dentistry graduates to set up practices in the NHS rather than the private sector.

Ian Mills, a professor in primary care dentistry, gave this problem a thorough examination a few months ago when the current government announced a fairly similar plan. His view was that recruiting more dentists sounds great, but dentistry is a five-year university course. The crisis is acute and in need of action long before the staff become available via such routes as extra training and incentives:

The UK has lower numbers of dentists per head of population compared with many other European countries. The UK has 5.3 dentists per 10,000 of the population compared with 6.5 in France, 8.3 in Italy and 8.5 in Germany.

Unfortunately for Starmer and Sunak, the solution in the immediate term, according to Mills, involves the one thing neither of them appears to want to do – making it easier to bring in more workers from overseas.

3. Sunak: is migration up or down?

Rigby dedicated a significant portion of her time with Sunak to discussing his immigration policies. She wanted him to explain why net migration continues to be so high even after the British people voted to “take back control” of their borders in the Brexit referendum.

Sunak agreed that he thinks the numbers are too high, which led Rigby to highlight that his party had been in charge while this had happened. She reeled off the proposals of prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson and asked: “Why should anyone believe what you say on immigration?”

Rigby was, here, hitting on a big problem for Sunak. His party has been in power for 14 years and any questions about his promises for the future raise other questions about why those promises haven’t been met before now. There can be few better examples of this conundrum than immigration – an issue that his party has made a priority for years without appearing to make a dent in the numbers.

This comprehensive timeline of immigration policies under the Conservatives shows how we got here and why so many self-imposed targets were missed.

We begin with the Cameron administration, which pledged to “reduce net migration (the number of people coming to the UK to live, minus the number leaving to move elsewhere) from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.”

We learn that five years later, despite a raft of restrictive policies “the Conservatives headed into the 2015 general election with net migration 75,000 higher than they inherited”.

Sunak said he still wants to reduce net migration.
Alamy/PA/Stefan Rousseau

From May’s hostile environment to Johnson’s Australian-style points system, seeing the sheer number of policies set out in this way is stark. Erica Consterdine of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research ends her timeline in the present day, when:

With conflict in the Conservative party intensifying over immigration, the government brought in more dramatic restrictions in 2024. This included barring care workers and postgraduate international students from being able to bring their dependants, and increasing the salary threshold for skilled workers and family visas.

4. Sunak: when will housing be affordable again?

Audience member Ian asked about his daughter, who wanted to get on the housing ladder. Sunak promised that he intended to introduce a new help to buy scheme and would abolish stamp duty on homes under £425,000.

This was greeted by laughter in the audience and a withering response from Ian, who said: “To be honest Mr Sunak. I don’t think she was thinking of buying a house that expensive.”

This chimes with how our expert reacted when we asked him to analyse the plans for housing set out in the Conservative manifesto.

A million extra homes, but can anyone afford to live in them?
Shutterstock

The manifesto places a heavy emphasis on home ownership but does not include commitments on making those homes affordable.

Recent research identifies a need for 145,000 new affordable homes each year but in 2022-23 only 63,605 such homes were delivered in England.

Nor does the plan include proposals on how to deal with the need for social housing or proposals on how to make housing developers deliver what is needed rather than what is profitable for them. Läs mer…

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer have gone head-to-head in their first TV debate of the 2024 election campaign. Here, we look at the evidence behind some of the claims they made with the help of academic expertise.

The cost of living

The opening question in this debate came from Paula, a member of the public who says the cost of living has left her in extreme hardship.

Sunak tells Paula that the economy is growing and assured her that he has a “plan” that is working.

A snapshot of the British economy provided by economist Michael Nower at the time the election was called a few weeks ago does show that those who have been struggling to make ends meet are experiencing improvements. Some household costs are at last coming down and others, such as food prices, have been rising more slowly than they have been in recent years.

But prices continue to rise for mortgage holders, as does the cost of non-essentials and social care – a burden for many families. The overall picture is therefore mixed.

The debate in full.

Starmer insists the government “has lost control” of the economy and that working people pay the price. However, Labour has been consistently criticised for being far too cautious on this matter. Matthew T. Johnson of Northumbria University and Matthew Flinders from the University of Sheffield argue that the party can afford to offer a far more ambitious vision for spending.

Their argument is based on a nationally representative survey of voters, including over 800 people in red wall constituencies.

The underpinning data indicate that annual progressive wealth taxes on those with assets over £2 million, increasing corporation tax to German levels, taxing carbon and fossil fuel production and removing a tranche of reliefs (collectively producing additional yields of over £340 billion per year), as a package, has an average approval rating of 72.6%.

This suggests that the voting public are on board with raising taxes in the interests of improving life for people like Paula.

Who is to blame for NHS waiting times?

The two leaders argued about whether NHS waiting times are rising or coming down, with Starmer quipping that he thought Sunak is meant to be “good at maths” when he appeared to become confused over the numbers.

Sunak attempted to blame waiting times on industrial action, but a survey conducted by a group of academics found that the voting public has very little time for this explanation. Even when people have to wait for the treatments they need, they are far more likely to blame politicians than striking doctors.

But the academics have a warning for both sides on this point:

It is likely that voters will punish the Conservatives for their poor performance on managing the NHS in the upcoming election. But that doesn’t mean Labour will get a free pass. Voters want the next government to sort things out – but the solutions to NHS problems are increasingly complex.

Immigration and asylum

Audience member Steven asked both candidates to address years of “broken promises” on immigration. Sunak says he would put annual caps on legal migration. But looking back at the past 14 years shows many before him have attempted to play this numbers game and failed.

In his recent overview of net migration targets, Rob McNeil of Oxford’s Migration Observatory argues that although they can be a convenient political tool, “the reality was (and still is) that government only has limited control over who comes and goes”.

Read more:
New data shows net migration falling − what’s actually behind the numbers

On asylum, Sunak stuck by his Rwanda plan, which – having been ruled unlawful by the supreme court – has been revamped and kicked into the long grass. Sunak said it is a deterrent policy that is ready to go, and that, if he is still prime minister, flights to Rwanda will take off in July.

Matilde Rosina, assistant professor in global challenges at Brunel University London, has explained why strategies of deterrence fail to stop migration flows.

Increased controls only change the nature of migration, they don’t stop it. For example, a study of 29 European countries found that a 10% rise in short-term visa rejections resulted in a 4-7% rise in irregular entries.

Sunak has stuck by his Rwanda plan to stop the boats.
Yui Mok/PA images

Sunak indicated he would be willing to pull the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights if it would help the Rwanda plan. Starmer, meanwhile, said he would not pull the UK out of international agreements, which the audience applauded.

Joelle Grogan of UK in a Changing Europe (King’s College London) has explained why leaving the ECHR would do more to damage the UK’s international reputation than it would to stopping the boats.

Withdrawal would set a precedent for other countries with far worse records, and weaken the UK’s reputation for holding itself and others to account.

Tax pledges

There was a bitter exchange about tax, even though both leaders say the same thing – that they would not raise national insurance, income tax or VAT. But moderator Julie Etchingham revealed that ITV has been inundated with questions about how spending commitments will therefore be met.

This reflects polling showing that voters don’t believe either Labour or the Conservatives when they make these promises on tax.

Want more election coverage from The Conversation’s academic experts? Over the coming weeks, we’ll bring you informed analysis of developments in the campaign and we’ll fact check the claims being made.

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Alan Shipman, an economist at the Open University, reverse engineered their fiscal commitments to see if they really can keep taxes as they are without making major cuts to public spending.

It’s possible, he concludes, but very difficult.

Triple lock for pensioners

Sunak’s response to the tax questions was to point to his pledge to introduce a “triple lock plus” for pensions, which he says will mean that state pensioners will never pay tax on the state pension.

As economist Jonquil Lowe points out:

This is something of a policy U-turn. It is just 14 years since the coalition government started to phase out higher personal allowances for older people.

Under the current triple lock, pensions rise with whatever is greatest: inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.

Because the Conservatives have frozen income tax thresholds until 2028, the number of pensioners being dragged into paying tax that they didn’t expect has risen. The triple lock plus would also raise the tax-free personal allowance in tandem with pensions.

Lowe questions whether the policy, which she calculates could save some pensioners about £400 over the next three years, is really a good use of resources, given the current state of the UK’s public services.

Young people and national service

While the triple lock plus is a policy squarely aimed at wooing older voters, a young audience member called Miles asked when the two leaders would prioritise his generation after a difficult few years trying to get an education through the pandemic and now trying to cope with the housing crisis.

Sunak’s response was to call his proposal to introduce national service a great opportunity for young people.

Miles’s visible displeasure at Sunak’s “big idea” echoes the sentiments of Jo Aubrey, a specialist in youth and community work, when she heard about Sunak’s policy. She cited many of the problems Miles raised when she insisted last week that his generation has been through enough and should not be asked for more – or be painted as the problem.

Starmer said Labour’s plan to build 1.5 million new homes would help young people.
Clare Louise Jackson/Shutterstock

End of round 1: will it make a difference?

This was just the first in a series of debate nights that will take place across the election campaign over the next month. But will any of these make a difference?

Research shows that our relationship with these TV debates is a strange one. We tend to think other people will be heavily swayed by what happens on the screen but that we will be impervious to the political pantomime. As this article points out:

YouGov’s polling indicates that almost half of voters expect the debates to have at least a “fair amount” of influence on the result. Here, we should remember the phenomenon known as the third-person effect: we often expect others to be more susceptible to media influence than ourselves.

If you don’t feel like you’ve learnt much about their policies from watching the two leaders duke it out for an hour, you’re probably not alone. However, these events can nevertheless be useful for enabling voters to get to know the personalities of the party leaders, which is especially useful for voters who are yet to make up their mind. Läs mer…

With the UK heading for an election on July 4, it can feel like the result is pre-ordained. Labour has maintained a decisive poll lead for over a year and nothing Rishi Sunak does appears to shift the dial.

But below the surface, much remains at stake in this six-week campaign.

For a start, there is no possible result in this contest that couldn’t be described as monumental. Should Keir Starmer win, he would have pulled off the most astonishing electoral turnaround in living memory and return Labour to power for the first time in 14 years. Should Rishi Sunak win, he’d practically be defying gravity.

In Scotland, the SNP’s dominance could be about to be turned into total wipeout. In Wales, boundary changes have dramatically redrawn the electoral map. In Northern Ireland, the DUP is entering its first truly post-Brexit election in a state of crisis following the arrest of its now-former leader – just as Sinn Féin is surging.

So, Labour’s huge poll lead is really just one part of the story.

Here at The Conversation, a charity, we are dedicated to providing readers with trustworthy, evidence-based journalism. Over the coming weeks, we’ll bring you informed analysis of developments in the campaign and we’ll fact check the claims being made.

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We will dive deep into manifestos to pull out the promises that matter. All parties need to answer big questions on the future of the NHS and the future of our planet. All have promised change and renewal after a period of great strain. We believe that university scholars with a deep knowledge of their fields are well placed to help the rest of us assess the value of what they are offering on all these issues.

If you value quality political coverage, please join us for this campaign by signing up to our weekly election newsletter, a distillation of the essential information every Friday afternoon. Läs mer…