Nathan Williams
Live page editor

We're pausing our live coverage for tonight, but fear not – we'll be back tomorrow bringing you all the latest election news.

Before we go here's a reminder of the some of the key events from the day:

• Rishi Sunak said he was "not aware" if other Conservative candidates were being investigated by the Gambling Commission, and said his party is carrying out its own internal inquiry
• Keir Starmer accused him of delaying the probe until after the election
• Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay, in an interview with Nick Robinson, defended the party's tax plans, calling them "fairly normal" by European standards
• The PM and Starmer once again faced a TV grilling, this time by the Sun's Harry Cole, with key questions about immigration and Jeremy Corbyn
• And, during a final campaign stop, Sunak said he understood people hesitating over voting Tory, but said the election was about the future

We have a brief update on Conservatives being looked into by the Gambling Commission over alleged bets on the date of the general election.

The BBC's political editor Chris Mason says Labour wrote to the commission over the weekend, suggesting that all the names they were looking into should be made public.

Tonight the commission says they will not be naming those they’re looking into, and they also said they have asked those being investigated to treat the matter confidentially.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been speaking at an event in Devon this evening.

Farage said it had it had been a "very odd 48 hours" after he said the Daily Mail accused him of being a "Putin apologist".

Farage has been criticised for suggesting the West "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine by expanding the European Union and Nato military alliance eastwards.

"Somehow, I am made out to be a Putin apologist, which of course I'm not. What he's done in Ukraine is reprehensible," Farage said.

"In Ukraine, I said, don't poke the Russian bear with a stick because if you do you will get a very predictable result," he added.

Away from Ukraine, Farage said that children's minds are being "poisoned at school".

"Millions of people who don't want our kids being poisoned at school and university, being told our country is the worst country that ever existed," he said.

Farage added that there is "nothing to stop us winning a couple of these seats" in next week's election.

Image source, PA Media

More now from Rishi Sunak's campaign event in Chelsea.

He urged people not to "sleepwalk" into a Labour government.

"We can't let Britain sleepwalk into this. It is our job, it is our duty over the next 10 days to wake people up to this danger.

"So I say to all of you, I say to every Conservative, don't surrender to Labour, fight for every vote, fight for our values, fight for our vision of Britain."

Sunak wasn't heading straight home to bed after this evening's live broadcast with The Sun - instead he was back campaigning this time in Chelsea, London.

He said he "understands people's hesitation" to continue supporting the Conservative Party.

However, he encouraged attendees to not "surrender" to Labour.

He said:

What was the impact of Liz Truss on mortgages?published at 21:11 British Summer Time 24 June

21:11 BST 24 June

By Robert Cuffe and Ben King

Speaking earlier during the Sun election programme, Sir Keir Starmer talked about former PM Liz Truss.

He said: “I've met so many people who have come off their fixed rate mortgage over the last couple of years and now have to pay hundreds of pounds more because of what the Tories did to the economy."

It is true that there was a spike in mortgage rates after the mini-budget during Truss’s short-lived premiership.

But mortgage rates had been rising before the mini-budget, as the Bank of England put up interest rates to fight the inflation which began rising after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. That spike faded away early in 2023.

The Bank of England governor said last January that the effect of the mini-budget had “pretty much gone” from interest rates.

But anyone who did take out a fixed-rate mortgage shortly after it may have signed up to a higher interest rate than they otherwise would have.

Image source, .

Adam Fleming
Newscast presenter

On today's Newscast we are talking about the think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) criticising basically all of the political parties for failing to give enough detail about their plans for taxing and spending in their manifestos.

Chris Mason, Alex Forsyth and I all agreed that maybe we are starting to expect too much from these documents.

As Chris said, manifestos are a summary of promises that are designed to illustrate a political party’s values. Or as I put it: "They're more like the Ten Commandments than the whole Bible."

Apologies to any theologians if this analogy doesn’t make sense!

You can listen to it clicking here.

Are asylum seeker returns down 44%?published at 20:35 British Summer Time 24 June

20:35 BST 24 June

During the same interview with the Sun newspaper, Labour leader Keir Starmer criticised the government’s record on returns of failed asylum seekers.

He said: “The number of people being returned from where they came from has dropped off 44% under this government.”

That’s about right when you look at the number of forced and voluntary returns from the UK of failed asylum seekers between 2010 and 2023.

Last year, 6,152 failed asylum seekers were returned but in 2010, 10,563 people were returned. That’s a fall of 42%.

The latest figures show an increase in the number of returns, external, driven by higher numbers of refused and withdrawn Albanian asylum claims.

Have small boat arrivals fallen in the past year?published at 20:22 British Summer Time 24 June

20:22 BST 24 June

By Lucy Gilder

Earlier in the the Sun interview, Rishi Sunak said that small boat crossings had fallen.

He said: “Over the last 12 months, the numbers are lower than they were in the 12 months before.”

This is right.

In the last 12 months, 31,280 people have been detected crossing, external, which is down 30% from the previous 12 months.

But the number of people who have arrived in small boats so far in 2024 is at a record high compared to the same period in previous years.

To date, 12,901 people have arrived this year.

Image source, .

Image source, PA Media

Let’s also go back now for a quick reminder of what we heard from Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer earlier this evening.

In case you missed it – the pair were each interviewed by the Sun’s Political Editor Harry Cole in a livestreamed broadcast.

• Sunak went first. He told the audience that he "won't hesitate to act" over the alleged bets on the date of the general election if anyone is found to have broken the law
• He acknowledged the past few years have been difficult but said there has been progress over the 14 years the Conservatives have been in power - citing education specifically. There's a BBC Verify post on this here
• On Rwanda, Sunak insisted "the flights will go" if he is elected

• The initial part of Starmer's interview centred on his previous support for Jeremy Corbyn. He said he has "picked up" the party and changed it since becoming leader
• Starmer told the audience he takes illegal migration "very seriously" and spoke of his plans to stop the criminal smuggling gangs and of his proposed new border security command
• He further insisted the NHS is the "best place" for life-threatening cases and on private care clarified that he wouldn't pay to jump a waiting list

You can get further detail here on key policies from Labour and the Conservatives.

We've been hearing from the Green Party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay who was just interviewed by Nick Robinson as part of his BBC Panorama leaders' interviews:

• Ramsay defended the scale of his party's tax plans, calling them "fairly modest" by European standards
• He said the extra £172bn per year his party would raise by 2030 was needed for public services and lowering carbon emissions
• He added that the Greens want a “more equal” society, as “we need to support people who are the worst off"

• Ramsay said the transition to a green economy would tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate emergency
• He insisted that scrapping every petrol and diesel car in the country won’t start until 2035
• Ramsay claimed that many people who traditionally voted Conservative are turning to the Greens because they’re looking for a change

And with that, Adrian Ramsay's BBC Panorama interview is over.

Next to face Nick Robinson will be leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey. (He's already interviewed Conservative leader Rishi Sunak, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, SNP leader John Swinney, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage - you can catch up on those episodes here.)

We'll bring you a round up of the key lines shortly, so stay tuned.

Robinson now asks about Ramsay about some specific Green candidates. One liked a tweet that said, "Israel must be eliminated", another likened Israel supporters to Nazis and another who claimed the victims of the Holocaust had turned into the predators.

Ramsay says he does not condone those comments and that those people are no longer Green candidates.

Pushed on whether the Greens have become "radical left", Ramsay says many people who traditionally voted Conservative and feel "utterly let down by this government" are turning to the Greens because they’re looking for a change, for a positive alternative.

Robinson now moves onto drugs.

The Green manifesto says the party want to create a "legally regulated market for drugs". Does that mean people off to music festivals this summer can think "vote Green, and you will be allowed to take cocaine, cannabis, ketamine?" Robinson asks.

Ramsay responds: "It says that we would introduce an independent commission on drugs, to address the fact that the war on drugs has failed."

"We need to see drug addiction as a medical issue, not as a criminal issue."

The topic now turns to migration. Robinson asks Ramsay about the Green Party’s long-term aim for a world "without borders".

"That’s not our policy in our manifesto," Ramsay responds.

He says "we need to uphold the UK's long track record of being a safe haven" for those "fleeing war and persecution or poverty or changes in the climate".

Ramsay is now asked about the issue of gender recognition.

Robinson raises the case of a biological man convicted of rape who was sent to a woman's prison in Scotland after changing gender while waiting to stand trial, but was then moved to a men's facility.

"Are you still saying JK Rowling is wrong, we need to push ahead on gender self-ID?" Robinson asks.

Ramsay says that "male bodied people should not be put in female prisons".

He adds that the whole discussion "has become highly toxic, in a way that ignores the fact that we have very high levels of violence against women and girls…and growing rates of hate crime against trans people".

Robinson now asks about taxes on the rich. He asks the Green co-leader if he can name another country in the world that has raised £50 to £70 billion in wealth taxes, as the Greens claim in their manifesto.

A to-and-fro ensues, with Ramsey pointing out that other European countries that have introduced wealth taxes, but doesn’t name any that have raised the amount given by Robinson.

Robinson pushes him on this, adding that it’s "all very well plucking big numbers out of the air" and suggests very wealthy people might then leave the UK.

Ramsay says the Green Party "is bringing in a different way of thinking, that by European standards is actually fairly normal".

"We can't expect to have the level of health services, the quality of education system that other countries have, if we don’t put the investment in that’s needed."

Where does the UK come in Europe in tax terms?published at 19:17 British Summer Time 24 June

19:17 BST 24 June

By Gerry Georgieva

The co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay told the BBC’s Nick Robinson that “the GDP-to-tax ratio that the Green Party is proposing would take us closer to where the average European country is” and went on to say “we’re right at the bottom”.

It is not correct to say the UK is “right at the bottom” when it comes to tax take, according to the intergovernmental organisation the OECD, external.

It says for 2022, our tax-to-GDP ratio, or the amount of money raised in tax as a proportion of the size of our economy, was 35.3%.

This means that we raised more from taxes than European countries such as Ireland, Switzerland, Latvia and Lithuania and also above the OECD average.

The Green Party manifesto proposes to get up to £151bn a year from new taxes by 2029 - an increase of around 4.5% of GDP.

That increase would put the UK ahead of Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to about the same level as Germany. But the UK would still be well behind the likes of France, Norway, Austria and Italy.

Robinson moves on to the Green Party’s pledge to spend £145bn a year. He contrasts this with the £5bn and £17bn Labour and the Tories say they will spend.

Ramsay says he is right to highlight the difference, because the NHS is at "breaking point". We need to transition to a green economy, we need to invest in schools, he adds.

He says the share of the economy that goes into tax is near the bottom of the European league table currently. The Greens plan would still put the UK below France and other countries, Ramsay says.

Ramsay says we can make "fairly modest" changes to the tax system to ask those with the broadest shoulders to pay more

More on taxes now. Robinson pushes on what a carbon tax would mean for the general public, pointing out that the Greens have vowed to raise £90 billion from such a tax.

He points to comments made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank, which said it would be "impossible" to raise that sort of money without the effect being felt by "everyone".

Ramsay says that they are proposing a carbon tax that would hit the "big polluting companies" and that Green policies would result in cheaper electricity through renewable energy.

He adds that economists and climate scientists have warned that the costs of not tackling the climate crisis "are far greater than the costs of tackling".