UK general election LIVE: Latest updates from the campaign trail

The Lib Dems have become the first political party to release its election manifesto with a promise to ‘save the NHS’ by pumping £9 billion into the health service.

Here’s what you need to know:

• This year’s Liberal Democrat manifesto is titled For A Fair Deal. It is 116 pages long and features 22 chapters, including one called Our Fair Deal and another named Political Reform.
• Sir Ed Davey says health and care are at the heart of the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto with a ‘bold, ambitious and fully-costed plan’ to tackle the health crisis from ‘top to bottom’.

He told an audience in London:

We can get people off waiting lists and into work, getting our economy growing strongly again too. We can save our NHS, we can fix the care crisis, we can give people a fair deal.

• Other policies include proposals to end sewage being dumped into rivers, free school meals across the country, home energy upgrades to cut bills and a guarantee that police will attend every burglary.
• He said the Lib Dems would push for a closer relationshipwith Europe, adding he wanted to see a ‘re-building the ties of trade and friendship’ to boost the economy and restore ‘Britain’s role on the world stage’.
• The Liberal Democrats leader also pledged to end first-past-the-post in favour of a proportional representation voting system.

Talk about a busy start to the week!

What an incredibly busy morning we’ve had on the campaign trail this morning as Rishi Sunak comes out fighting for his political survival.

Here’s everything you need to know with six key takeaways:

• Rishi Sunak has vowed to campaign until the last day of the election campaign and insists he never thought about quitting following intense criticism over his decision to leave the D-Day commemorations before an international event
• Mr Sunak also addressed an attack on him by Nigel Farage who said the Prime Minister doesn’t ‘understand our culture’ after his D-Day departure but said any response ‘wouldn’t be good for politics’.
• Keir Starmer has slapped down one of his own frontbench team after Emily Thornberry suggested class sizes could increase in state schools as a result of Labour’s plans to charge VAT to private schools.
• Mr Starmer also insisted there would be ‘no tax surprises’ in the party’s manifesto to be published on Thursday.
• Douglas Ross has announced he will stand down as leader of the Scottish Conservatives
• Sir Ed Davey will launch the Liberal Democrat’s election pledges today including a £9 billion promise to fix the NHS

We will continue to bring you the latest news as and when we get it.

Mr Starmer said it was a ‘tough choice’ to charge VAT on private school fees and he has ‘nothing against’ parents that choose to send their children to private schools.

Labour’s policy has been criticised as an attack on aspiration amid fears many parents will be forced to send their children to state schools as they cannot afford the increased fees.

Speaking at Nursery Hill Primary School in Nuneaton, Mr Starmer said:

Many parents will want to send their children to private schools and I’ve nothing against that whatsoever.

But we have to fix the problems we’ve got within our state schools, both the lack of essential teachers, we’ve got too many teachers missing in essential subjects like maths, and we need to provide childcare and nursery places.

And the question you and others always ask me is ‘if you’re going to do that, which is a good thing to do, how are you going to fund it?’

Given the economy is badly broken under this Government, we’ve made the choice, difficult choice, tough choice, that will get rid of the tax break on private schools and use it for those much needed teachers in our secondary schools and use it for the childcare and the nurseries that we’re rolling out today.

Sir Keir Starmer has said there will be ‘no tax surprises’ in the party’s manifesto as he reiterated that all of Labour’s pledges can be delivered with no rise in income tax, national insurance or VAT.

We’re going to launch our manifesto later this week, there will be no tax surprises in there, we’re not going to increase tax on working people.

And that means no increases in income tax and national insurance and VAT, and all of our plans are, as I say, fully costed, fully funded, and they don’t require tax rises over and above those that we’ve already set out.

So there won’t be any surprises when the manifesto is unveiled on Thursday.

Asked if he could match the Government’s expansion of childcare Sir Keir said:

We will deliver. I mean, our plan is actually better than the Government, the Government is right to say that they’ll have a plan, the problem they’ve got is they haven’t planned for it, and therefore, they haven’t got the spaces for it. What we will do with our plan is provide 100,000 spaces, 3,000-plus new nurseries.

This is a better plan. But of course, we want to complete on the Government’s plan, but actually do it in a way that’s planned and deliverable. Theirs is a good idea but not deliverable.

Well…while Rishi Sunak has come out fighting for his political future, Sir Keir Starmer has rejected a suggestion from his frontbench that Labour’s planned VAT add to private schools fees would lead to larger class sizes.

Asked if Ms Thornberry was wrong to say that adding VAT to private school fees would increase class sizes in the state sector, Sir Keir said: ‘Yes.’

We’ve had the analysis by the IFS on this, which says that there’ll be a negligible impact. So we’re very confident about that.

When asked if VAT on private schools is enough to fund Labour’s childcare policy as well as hiring 6,500 new teachers Sir Keir said:

This is a really important policy because as any parent with young children will tell you, childcare and nursery places are really essential.

Our scheme is fully funded, fully costed, but also fully planned so it would be wrapped around primary schools and just talking to some of the parents here who’ve got other children in the school, it will be a real game changer for them. So this has been very positively received.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said ‘of course not’ when asked if he considered quitting ahead of the election amid the D-Day fallout and insisted he is ‘energised’ and finding “enormous amount of support” for the policies he has put forward.

Our political editor James Tapsfield has the full story here as the Prime Minister comes out swinging at the start of the week as he aims to put his D-Day debacle behid him.

Rishi Sunak said ‘I don’t think it’s good for our politics’ if he commented on Nigel Farage’s suggestion that the Prime Minister does not understand “our culture”.

The Reform UK leader made the comment in his attack on Mr Sunak for leaving the D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations in Normandy early.

Asked what he made of Mr Farage’s remarks, the Prime Minister told reporters on a campaign visit to West Sussex:

You can ask him. I can’t speak for him and what he meant by those comments.

I’m not going to get involved in that because I don’t think it’s good for our politics, or indeed our country.

And when it comes to the D-Day events, I spoke about that a lot last week. I absolutely didn’t mean to cause anyone any hurt or upset, and that’s why I apologised unreservedly for the mistake that I made.

And I just hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me and look at my actions that I’ve taken as Prime Minister, both to support our armed forces with an increase in defence spending, but also have the minister focused on veterans affairs around the Cabinet table, making sure this is best country in the world to be a veteran.

Rishi Sunak said he is ‘not really interested in Reform’ and instead was focused on dividing lines with Labour as he was questioned about ex-home secretary Suella Braverman’s call to welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party.

Ms Braverman said there was not ‘much difference really’ between the Reform UK leader’s policies and the Tories’.

Speaking during a campaign visit to West Sussex, the Prime Minister told reporters:

Look, I’m not really interested in Reform, quite frankly. I’m interested in delivering for the British people with the agenda that I’m setting out.

The big difference here is between us and the Labour Party – that’s the choice at this election. Only Keir Starmer or I are going to be prime minister on July 5, so everyone should just think about that.

A vote for anyone who is not a Conservative candidate is just a vote to put Keir Starmer in power, and that’s the simple reality of it.

So people who are thinking of voting Reform, the question they should ask themselves is, ‘if you care about tackling migration and bringing it down, if you want a more proportionate approach to net zero, if you want your taxes cut, if you want your pension protected’, those are all things that I’m going to offer and the Conservatives will deliver. Keir Starmer doesn’t believe in any of those things.

Rishi Sunak has faced questions about rumours he might quit as Prime Minister before polling day.

‘People are gonna say what they’re gonna say,’ he told reporters on the campaign trail in West Sussex.

I am very confident in the actions that we’re putting forward for the British people.

I’m confident they will deliver a more secure future for people. There are lots of people who want to write me off, write this off, say this campaign or the election is a foregone conclusion.

They’ve been saying that, by the way, ever since I’ve got this job, right? Not since this election campaign.

The reality is I’m not going to stop going, I’m not going to stop fighting for people’s votes, I’m not going to stop fighting for the future of our country.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed he will not stop ‘fighting for the future of our country’ and will carry on ‘until the last day of this campaign’ as he sought to draw a line under the fallout over his early departure from D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

Labour has pledged to free up childcare places by creating more than 3,000 new nurseries within primary schools in an estimated cost of £40,000 per classroom.

The party says the money will come from the new VAT tax on private schools.

Labour says space freed up in primary schools could unlock 3,334 new “high quality” nurseries set up in areas with the highest demand for places.

On Sunday, Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, told GB News the policy could increase class sizes in the short term.

But Ms Phillipson said her colleague ‘wasn’t right’ and that there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ while on the morning broadcast round today.

Sure enough as soon as we get a picture of Mr Sunak, some emerge of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Starmer and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson are visiting a nursery in Nuneaton to unveil Labour’s plans for childcare if the party win the general election.

Labour has pledged to create 100,000 additional childcare places and more than 3,000 new nurseries as part of its plan.

Rishi Sunak is back on the campaign trail in West Sussex where he visited a cafe at a garden centre to talk to local residents.

The Prime Minister has endured a difficult few days after leaving the D-Day commemorations before an international event with world leaders.

Mr Sunak unveiled a new Conservative pledge to recruit an extra 8,000 police officers across England and Wales.

Here’s our story from The Daily Mail’s deputy political editor Harriet Line as the Conservatives last night pledged to recruit 8,000 extra police officers by increasing visa fees for foreign visitors and workers.

Rishi Sunak will vow to bring back neighbourhood policing while Labour said they would speed up prison building and tackle the court backlog in rape cases.

Read Harriet’s story here:

Mr Ross has issued a statement following his announcement he will stand down as leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

I have served as MP, MSP and leader for over three years now and believed I could continue to do so if re-elected to Westminster, but on reflection, that is not feasible.

I am committed to fighting and winning the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency. Should I be given the honour to represent the people and communities of this new seat, they should know being their MP would receive my complete focus and attention.

I will therefore stand down as leader following the election on 4 July, once a successor is elected. Should I win the seat, I will also stand down as an MSP to make way for another Scottish Conservative representative in Holyrood.

My party has a chance to beat the SNP in key seats up and down Scotland, including in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. We must now come together and fully focus on doing exactly that.

Mr Ross’s announcement comes days after he declared he would stand to be an MP to ‘beat the SNP’ after a sick colleague was blocked from seeking re-election.

The move coame despite Mr Ross previously having said he would step down from the Commons to focus on his role at Holyrood.

Read James Tapsfield’s report here:

Douglas Ross will stand down as leader of the Scottish Conservatives after the general election, he has announced.

People may not feel safer on the streets because social media amplifies the impact of crime more than ever, Chris Philp has suggested.

Asked whether he believed people feel safer now than when the Conservatives came into government, the Home Office minister told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “

There is a perception, a feeling that you mentioned, and even though crime has demonstrably gone down according to the crime survey, sometimes people don’t feel so safe.

That is partly because of social media, so an incident, a knife crime incident, gets sort of magnified across social media in a way that wasn’t the case even five years ago, certainly 10 years ago.

There are particular places like London under Sadiq Khan where there is a… particular knife crime problem, but overall crime has gone down.

Mr Philp was speaking after the Prime Minister promised to recruit 8,000 more neighbourhood police officers in the Conservatives’ latest election pledge.

Chris Philp, the policing minister, has become the latest Conservative to publicly criticise Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave the D-Day commemorations in Normandy.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Philp (pictured) said he was ‘shocked and disappointed’ when he heard the Prime Minister had departed early.

He said Mr Sunak had apologised and added he has a ‘good track record’ on veterans.

He was then asked about Mr Sunak apparently scaling back from interviews over the weekend but insisted the Prime Minister will be out campaigning today and talking to journalists whenever they want to ask him some questions’.

The Lib Dems are today pledging to pump £9 billion into the NHS.

Sir Ed Davey will talk up the policy at the party’s manifesto launch in North London with plans to recruit 8,000 more GPs, boost cancer survival rates and introduce free personal care for the elderly and the disabled.

Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the money will be raised by reversing tax cuts given to big banks while extra money would also be generated by reforming capital gains tax – which is likely to affect the wealthiest.

Speaking to Sky News, Sir Ed Davey said:

This is the healthcare election for the Liberal Democrats.

We’ve been listening to people around the country, and top of their concerns in so many areas is the health service.

So we have absolutely made the NHS and care at the heart of our manifesto.

Here’s what we have coming up on the campaign trail today:

• Rishi Sunak is campaigning in Horsham where he will attend a neighbourhood watch meeting as the Conservatives unveil plans to recruit an extra 8,000 police officers
• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson will visit a nursery in the West Midlands as the party unveils its plans for childcare.
• Sir Ed Davey launches Lib Dems manifesto with a speech in north London before heading to Thorpe Park this afternoon
• Nigel Farage and Richard Tice will launch Reform UK’s economic policy in Westminster.
• Scottish First Minister John Swinney will visit an after-school club in Glasgow on a youth football related announcement
• At 8pm, Rishi Sunak will be interviewed by Nick Robinson for a BBC Panorama General Election special

We will bring you the latest news as and when we get it.

Hello and welcome to another week on the general election campaign trail with just three-and-a-half weeks to go until the country heads to the polls on July 4.

This week, the main political parties will be launching their election manifestoes packed with promises to the public before they tick their ballots.

The Liberal Democrats will launch theirs today, the Conservatives tomorrow and Labour on Thursday.

Stick with us and we bring you the reaction plus all the big political stories of the day.