Chris Mason
Political editor

This was the campaign’s most free flowing debate.

Spared the shackles of outwardly noticeable rules and early campaign nerves; freighted with the jeopardy of the imminence of the electorate’s verdict.

Rishi Sunak is the more comfortable of the two in this format; he wore the role of underdog with little to lose with a confident, persistent scrutiny of his opponent.

Keir Starmer – with everything to lose – had his own frequent scripted put-downs and jabs of scepticism; a notable difference from their ITV outing three weeks ago.

This felt like a far more competitive contest than the opinion polls persistently suggest this election is.

After five weeks of campaigning, the vast lead Labour have in the polls over the Conservatives hasn’t budged.

This last set piece event now done, the sprint finish to the end of this contest is under way.

Dulcie Lee
Live page editor

As we snaffle the final chocolates of the evening, we'll leave the final words of the night to our political editor Chris Mason shortly.

In the meantime:

Here's what happened - in 70 words

• In an at-times fiery debate, Sunak and Starmer clashed on tax, immigration, the betting scandal and more - get up to speed in our summary here
• Both leaders came out fighting, as our chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman wrote in his snap analysis here
• The pair traded claims on a retirement tax, migration, and Liz Truss - our colleagues at BBC Verify have raked over the key claims here

Hungry for more?

• Listen to Laura Kuenssberg, Chris Mason and Adam Fleming on Newscast here
• Watch the highlights of the night in our pinned video above
• Read our six key takeaways here

Still not sure who to vote for?

Compare what all the major parties are promising on everything from the NHS to housing in our manifesto tracker here.

From the team here in New Broadcasting House, thanks for joining us, have a lovely evening.

Watch our chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman's match report in this short clip below:

Is Starmer right that existing laws protect women-only spaces?published at 23:49 British Summer Time 26 June

23:49 BST 26 June

By Tamara Kovacevic

In an exchange with Rishi Sunak over the Tory pledge to rewrite the Equality Act to help maintain women-only spaces, Sir Keir Starmer said: “This is all set out in the Equalities Act already, the specific instance of safe spaces."

The Equality Act 2010, external says no-one should be discriminated against because they are transgender.

But the law also says single-sex service providers can choose to exclude transgender people where this is a ''proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim''.

An example given by the Equality Act, external is that organisers of group counselling for female sexual assault victims could exclude a trans woman if they judged that clients would be unlikely to attend the session if she was there.

In 2022, the Equality and Human Rights Commission - Britain's human rights body – published further guidance for providers of single-sex services.

It said, for example, that domestic abuse refuges could bar transgender women, external if biologically female survivors indicated they felt uncomfortable sharing accommodation with trans women.

In the spin room after the debate finished, Clive Myrie caught up with two members of the audience who asked questions of Sunak and Starmer.

See whether they felt their questions were answered in this two-minute clip below:

Have the Tories’ £12bn welfare savings already been spent?published at 23:18 British Summer Time 26 June

23:18 BST 26 June

Ben Chu, BBC Verify

The Tories have pledged £12bn of savings from the welfare budget, but Keir Starmer said: "The money’s been spent. The money isn’t there."

But this isn’t quite right.

Starmer’s claim is based on Jeremy Hunt’s claim in a newsletter to his constituents this month that the tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto would be funded by savings from "an enormous back to work programme (which I announced in the Autumn Statement last year)".

Some of the welfare reform measures in the Tory manifesto do seem to have been previously announced in the autumn of 2023 including:

• Strengthening benefit sanctions
• Work capability assessment reforms
• Investment in mental health treatments to help people back to work

These measures were factored into the Office for Budget Responsibility's spending calculations at the time of the 2023 Autumn Statement, meaning any savings are already banked.

However, not all of the welfare measures in the Tory manifesto were previously announced, including:

• Fit note reform
• Accelerating the roll out of Universal Credit
• Reforming access to disability benefits

For more detail read here

Emily Atkinson
Reporting from the BBC debate spin room

We've just caught our breath after a frenetic final televised head-to-head between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, the beginning of which was almost drowned out by protests outside.

Blinked and missed it? Here’s a round-up of all the key moments:

Migration

• There was a long and heated exchange over migration - Starmer said the government had lost control, while Sunak told voters not to "surrender the country's security" to Labour

Taxes

• The PM repeated his well-worn claim that Labour would raise taxes if it won the election, while his party would cut them, a claim rejected by Starmer who pointed to the economic fallout of the unfunded tax cuts under Liz Truss

Alleged bets

• Sunak said he was "frustrated and furious” when he learned of the betting allegations against his candidates, while Starmer said he wanted to "reset politics"

Leadership

• Asked by one audience member “are you two really the best we've got” to be PM, Starmer recalled his role as Director of Public Prosecutions while Sunak pushed his record on the economy

Protecting women-only spaces

• Sunak said "sex means biological sex" and he would protect such spaces - Starmer said it was important to protect women's spaces, and all people need to be treated “with dignity and respect”

Brexit

• Starmer said he won't accept that the UK can't get a better Brexit deal than the current one - while Sunak claimed there would be free movement "by the back door" under Labour

Image source, Getty Images

Claim and counterclaim were flying around the BBC debate studio during tonight's 75-minute head-to-head.

Our colleagues at BBC Verify have been digging into various claims made by Sunak and Starmer, including:

• Will Labour bring in a retirement tax?
• Have 50,000 people crossed the Channel under Sunak?
• Will Labour's net zero plans cost hundreds of billions?
• Are people still paying the price of Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts?

For answers and analysis on all of these, check out their piece here.

And after a spiky 75-minute debate on some key topics of the election, a snap poll from YouGov suggests there was no outright winner.

Asked who performed best - "leaving aside your own party preferences" - the result came in as 50/50.

However, Conservative 2019 voters who watched the debate thought Sunak won by 82% to 18%.

And here are some other interesting metrics: Asked who BBC debate viewers thought came across as more:

• Trustworthy: Sunak 39% / Starmer 50%
• Likeable: Sunak 33% / Starmer 52%
• In touch: Sunak 18% / Starmer 63%
• Prime ministerial: Sunak 41% / Starmer 42%

The polling company had a sample of 1,716 debate viewers for their poll.

A debate with anger, passion and jeopardypublished at 22:16 British Summer Time 26 June

22:16 BST 26 June

Chris Mason
Political editor

Tonight was all about the tone - the exchanges as opposed to the content.

Of course, the content matters but much of that will be familiar to regular viewers over the last five weeks.

It was the exchanges that defined tonight.

It was a more free-flowing debate than we’ve seen previously - there was more anger, there was more passion, there was more jeopardy.

Sunak had nothing to lose tonight and that defined his approach - he really went for it.

Starmer had everything to lose and you could sense that too, but he was much more aggressive than he was a few weeks back when the equivalent programme took place on ITV.

Tonight, the scripted put downs were there from both of them, the things they anticipate will be clipped up on social media in the coming minutes and hours and circulate with a half-life between now and polling day.

They were prepped, they were conscious of what was at stake. It was quite a watch.

A battle of wills as Sunak and Starmer come out fightingpublished at 22:09 British Summer Time 26 June

22:09 BST 26 June

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

It’s obvious what an important event tonight was in this general election campaign. The two leaders’ body language practically radiated it.

Rishi Sunak had the frantic energy of someone whose career is riding on this last week of the campaign. To be fair, it pretty much is.

You could see in Sunak’s determination to land key arguments and even key words — “surrender” was the new soundbite tonight — that he really wanted to make this last set-piece moment count.

But you also saw in Starmer a determination not to be blown off course. He tried to land the core messages he has been pushing throughout this campaign: about change, about the past 14 years, about how Labour’s position on Brexit has changed since the UK completed its departure from the bloc.

I was also very struck by the way in Starmer’s closing statement he kept reminding voters that if they want a Labour government then they had to “vote for it”.

Everybody knows the story that the polls are telling about this campaign. But we don’t know if they are right, and we don’t know how they might be shaping voter behaviour.

Not long left to find out.

Are people still paying the price of Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts?published at 22:02 British Summer Time 26 June

22:02 BST 26 June

By Ben King, BBC Verify

During the debate, Keir Starmer said the Conservatives were planning “unfunded tax cuts” and added that Liz Truss had tried that experiment and that “people are still paying the price” - he went on to say people “are now paying hundreds of pounds more because of the damage done to the economy”.

It is true that there was a spike in mortgage rates after the mini-budget - which included unfunded tax cuts, 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.

Emily Atkinson
Reporting from the BBC debate spin room

The moment the end credits rolled on the BBC Prime Ministerial Debate, journalists and politicians leapt out of their seats, and the spinning began.

This is a moment for the politicians representing Labour and the Tories to try to convince us journalists and you at home that their man won.

Laura Kuenssberg and Clive Myrie are currently presenting reaction and analysis live from the spin room - you can follow that live by tapping the watch live button above.

Laura Kuenssberg and Clive Myrie are giving their snap reaction to the debate (which you can watch live above).

Myrie says it was a "spiky" evening, while Kuenssberg says you could tell both men know "the time is now".

She notes both Sunak and Starmer had keywords they kept returning to, in the case of the prime minister it was the idea of voters "surrendering" to a Labour government.

For Starmer she says it was the idea of "14 years" of Tory government, which he would return to regularly to emphasise how long his opponents have held power.

Is Labour’s manifesto fully costed and funded?published at 21:49 British Summer Time 26 June

21:49 BST 26 June

By Anthony Reuben

In the debate, Keir Starmer said Labour’s manifesto was “fully funded, fully costed”.

But in its analysis of manifestos earlier in the week, independent think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that it was suspicious of claims that they were fully funded, particularly on promises to reduce NHS waiting times.

“You can’t pledge to end all waits of more than 18 weeks, allocate no money to that pledge, and then claim to have a fully costed manifesto,” IFS director Paul Johnson said.

He also said that the Conservatives’ commitments to the NHS “are essentially unfunded”.

A revealing final moment from both leaderspublished at 21:39 British Summer Time 26 June

21:39 BST 26 June

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Those pre-scripted closing statements give us the clearest sense of where both parties think they stand with just over a week to go until polling day.

From Rishi Sunak, an overt indication that the Conservatives believe they are behind. He opened essentially with an apology, trying to empathise with voters’ "frustrations" with the Conservatives, and even "with me".

But he tried to insist that the election should not just be about venting frustration because it has "profound consequences".

He also used his 30 seconds as an opportunity to reiterate his controversial £2000 tax claim, prompting a furious Keir Starmer to shout "that is a lie".

From Starmer, the same message as throughout the campaign - "vote change". But with a twist. He ended his first few sentences by telling the public: "You have to vote for it."

That may betray just a flicker of concern from Labour that some of their potential voters see this election as a foregone conclusion and may therefore not be certain to go and vote.

Would Labour put taxes up by £2,000 per family?published at 21:38 British Summer Time 26 June

21:38 BST 26 June

By Anthony Reuben

In his closing statement, Rishi Sunak again said people would pay at least £2,000 more in tax under a Labour government.

The figure risks misleading people, not least because it consists of £500 a year extra for four years. That is not what you would normally think of if somebody said your taxes were going up by £2,000.

The Tories reached the figure by adding up how much they claim Labour’s spending plans would cost - £38.5bn over four years - and dividing this by the number of UK households with at least one person working. Labour disputes the figure.

The Conservatives say the costings were worked out by impartial civil servants, but some are based on assumptions made by politically appointed special advisers.

For example, one costing looks at Labour’s plan to have more services provided by the state instead of by private companies and it assumes that private companies are always 7.5% more efficient. But the civil servants doing the costings warned about the use of that figure.

Read more here.

Starmer says he has a "simple message" - if you want the NHS back, a growing economy, more police on the streets, more teachers in schools, then vote Labour.

The power to "end 14 years of Tory chaos" is "in your hands", he says.

And that brings us to the end of the debate. Stick with us for analysis and reaction.

"I understand why you're frustrated with our party, with me," Sunak says.

He says this is not a byelection - it's a choice with profound consequences.

He makes the claim that under Labour people would pay £2,000 more in tax and says Starmer isn't being straight about his polices. (BBC Verify has previously looked into that figure and found it risks misleading people.)

He ends by urging voters not to vote for any other party.