Party leaders Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and John Swinney faced a grilling from the public at the Question Time Leaders’ Special live from York.
Each leader was questioned for 30 minutes with Fiona Bruce moderating and chiming in with follow-up questions and to offer context.
Below, the PA news agency lists the key moments from Thursday night’s event.
Bruce poking fun at Sir Ed over how he met his wife
Host Fiona Bruce teased Ed Davey over how he met his wife.
Sir Ed said he met his wife at a Liberal Democrat housing policy working group, to which Ms Bruce replied: “What a night out.”
Is Rishi or Keir better for Scotland?
SNP leader John Swinney did not answer this question directly, but said the Tories have been a “disaster” and “calamity” and “can’t be out of office quick enough”.
Starmer turns trans question back on Sunak
Sir Keir was quizzed on his change in views on the transgender debate – from previously criticising MP Rosie Duffield for saying only women have a cervix to earlier this week saying he agreed that only men have a penis and only women have a vagina.
The Labour leader said he had been concerned about the “toxic” nature of the debate at the time and turned the conversation back to Rishi Sunak’s jibe about trans people in the House of Commons.
“It’s a shocking place to get to,” he said, and was met with applause from the audience.
Calls of shame over ECHR
Audience members chanted “shame on you” when Rishi Sunak said he would prioritise the UK’s security over the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr Sunak said he was “prepared to do what it takes” to begin sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, adding that the country does not need a “foreign court” to issue instructions on border security. “I will put our country first,” he added.
Theme of trust
“There’s a bit of a theme emerging,” Fiona Bruce said as Mr Sunak was asked how the public could trust him.
Ed Davey and Sir Keir Starmer were asked similar questions – including in relation to the Liberal Democrat party’s past coalition and broken promises on tuition fees and Sir Keir’s disavowal of Jeremy Corbyn after campaigning for him in 2019.
An audience member said she was not convinced of Sir Keir’s integrity based on his answer to her question about why he campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 and is now criticising the Tory manifesto as Corbyn-like.
Sunak stands behind election timing
Rishi Sunak said he believed he had chosen the right moment to call the General Election.
He told the BBC Question Time audience: “It was the right moment to call the election, for the reasons that I have outlined.”
Asked if he was glad to have called the election, he added: “I am.”
Starmer says Corbyn would be a better PM than Boris Johnson
Sir Keir was challenged over his one-time statement Mr Corbyn would make a great prime minister. “It wasn’t a question that really arose because I didn’t think we were going to win the election,” Sir Keir said. When Bruce asked for a yes or no answer to whether he meant it, there was laughter from the audience when he did not give one, instead saying that Mr Corbyn would be a better premier than Boris Johnson.
