Election debate: reaction and analysis after Jeremy Corbyn and party leaders spar – as it happened

Lucas says 1m food parcels were given out last year. That is quite wrong.

Husain asks Rudd what happened to Theresa May’s talk about the just-about managing.

Rudd says there are 800,000 workless households. And there are 3m more jobs, she says.

Wood says the number of people on zero-hours contracts in Wales has “gone through the roof”.

Q: I have gone without a pay rise. What can you do about that?

Rudd says the government inherited a difficult situation. The Tories have a plan for the economy, unlike the other parties.

Corbyn says living standards have fallen. Six million people are earning less than the living wage. Labour would increase it. And it would stop people having to pay charges to go to tribunal. The gap between the top and the bottom has risen. That has to stop, he says.

Robertson says austerity has been a choice. The SNP has a different approach. It will implement that in Scotland, and push for that at Westminster. He particularly attacks disability cuts.

Rudd says spending on disability payments has gone up.

Corbyn intervenes. She has taken money away from the disabled, he says.

Rudd tells him he has to stop acting as if there is “a magic money tree”.

Farron says he knows what it is like to be without money. He says any one of us may be just a few payments away from being hard up.

Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leader, says Ukip will stand up for the many. The government’s job is to protect the public. The police and the border force must be given the resources they need. But politicians must do their bit too. He says he believes in our way of life. And Ukip believes in Britain.

Angus Robertson, the SNP deputy leader, says Scotland needs a strong voice. He says a vote of the SNP is a vote against cuts, and a vote for jobs. It is a vote for Scotland to decide its own future. We cannot give Theresa May a blank cheque to persuade any kind of Brexit, he says.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, asks where Theresa May is. She may be outside your house, sizing it up so so can take it to pay for your dementia care. And she would take food from your children’s mouths. He has three good reasons for voting Lib Dem: first, he would rescue social care and the NHS by putting 1p on income tax; he would give you a say on Brexit, and he would stop May taking you for granted.

Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, says Theresa May is taking people for granted. For 100 years Wales has voted Labour. But they are not airbrushing their leader out of their campaign. Let’s stop doing what she is doing, and elect Plaid MPs for a strong future for Wales.

Caroline Lucas, the Green co-leader, says people can vote for a new kind of politics: clean energy, non-nuclear, pro-refugees, pro-diversity, and pro “the good guys, not dodgy dictactors”. The Greens have shown you don’t need the keys to Number 10 to unlock change.

Amber Rudd, the Conservative home secretary, says people have a vital choice: do you want Theresa May and her team, who have a plan, building on the success they have had, strengthening the economy. The only question is who should be in Number 10: Jeremy Corbyn with his “money tree wishlist”, or May.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, says the question is: do we want a country for the many, and not the few, or a country saddled with debt? None of that is strong or stable. Labour will make different choices. We will ask people to give a bit more. Vote Labour to transform Britain for the many not the few.

Mishal Husain opens the programme.

She introduces the leaders, or their stand-ins.

The audience was selected to be representative of the country as a whole, she says. Some support parties, and some are undecided. And they split leave/remain in line with the country.

This is from Jeremy Corbyn (or the person who runs his Twitter account.)

This is from Mishal Husain, who is chairing tonight’s debate.

The spin room for tonight’s debate is at the Cambridge Union. My colleague Jessica Elgot is there.

Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, has defended Theresa May’s decision not to attend the debate on BBC News. She said May had attended more meetings and met more voters than Jeremy Corbyn. And she said it took Corbyn six weeks to decide to attend tonight. (Until today, he said he was not attending if May was not taking part.)

The academic Philip Cowley, co-author of the Nuffield guide to the 2015 general election (the closest we have to an official history), tweeted these earlier.

But he qualified those tweets with this.