Image source, PA

Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb, responding to Labour's housing plan, said: "Our housing shortage means that home ownership has become nothing but a fantasy for millions across the country, so this scheme would be a very welcome step in the right direction.

"Every day, we hear from those bearing the brunt of our housing crisis, stuck in their childhood bedrooms or paying out dead money to landlords with little hope of getting on the property ladder.

"Schemes like this will certainly help, but it's crucial that we also build homes that are genuinely affordable to ordinary hardworking people, including to those on lower incomes."

The Liberal Democrats have criticised Labour's record on housing in office. Lib Dem Stephen Williams communities minister says: "Both Ed Miliband and Ed Balls admitted to failing on housing in government and no one should believe anything has changed now.

"For decades, successive Conservative and Labour governments have not built enough homes and neither will build enough to meet what experts agree is needed to meet demand.

"The Liberal Democrats will build 300,000 homes a year needed to tackle the housing crisis while also helping people who want to get on the housing ladder now, through our Rent To Own scheme."

Under the Lib Dems' plan , young people in England would make monthly payments equivalent to rent to build up a share in their home, without requiring a deposit.

Elsewhere in the campaign, the Liberal Democrats have set out plans for a £2.5bn healthcare fund to alleviate pressure on hospitals in England.

The aim is for improved GP access, a wider range of services at doctors' surgeries and better healthcare in nursing homes.

The money would come from the £8bn extra a year the party has promised to spend on health care by 2020.

Leader Nick Clegg, announcing the policy during a visit to a care home in his Sheffield Hallam constituency, said it would stop people unnecessarily "languishing" in hospital beds.

Commenting on the Daily Telegraph's report that Nicola Sturgeon said privately she wanted David Cameron to be prime minister, Ed Miliband says: "These are damning revelations. What it shows is that while in public the SNP is saying they don't want to see a Conservative government, in private they are actually saying they do want a Conservative government".

He adds: "If you want the Conservatives out, the only way is to vote Labour."

He repeats a claim that a coalition between Labour and the SNP is "not going to happen".

Ms Sturgeon has denied the Telegraph's claim.

Ed Miliband says: "This government has built fewer homes that at any times since the 1920s. We're determined to turn that around."

Speaking in the constituency of Elmet and Rothwell in West Yorkshire, the Labour leader claims that "governments of both parties haven't done enough in the past" but Labour now has "a plan to do something about this".

He adds: "The banks must play their part in building homes for people in the future."

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French consul general Pierre-Alain Coffinier, speaking on Sky News about the Nicola Sturgeon story , says: "At no stage did anyone make any comment on their preference regarding the outcome of the elections."

He says he was present at the meeting between Scotland's first minister and the French ambassador to the UK, Sylvie Bermann, and had not told civil servants Ms Sturgeon had expressed a preference for Mr Cameron.

Mr Coffinier added he "did not know" how the claim got into a British civil service memo.

"I can tell you that no-one made any preference," he said. "I don't know where this comes from."

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Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds tells BBC Breakfast that Labour "would stipulate" that the money that is saved in the government's new help-to-buy ISAs "would have to go to house building, whether it's housing associations or developers".

She adds that banks currently invest the money as they want but Labour plans for that money to be invested in housing.

She claims that the government has been "too focused on the demand side" and has not done enough to address an "under-supply" of housing.

BBC Breakfast

Culture Secretary Sajid Javed tells BBC Breakfast that David Cameron's performance in Thursday's leaders' debate showed that "the only leader that was there was the prime minister".

Returning to a familiar Conservative theme, he says any combination of the debate's "other six parties" in power "would be chaos for our country".

He says today's Telegraph story shows SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon "thinks Ed Miliband is not up to the job".

Ms Sturgeon has denied the newspaper's claim she told a French diplomat she would prefer David Cameron in No 10 over Ed Miliband, as has the French consul general in Edinburgh.

A new poll suggests a majority of people in Britain support tax rises as a way of funding the NHS. An Ipsos MORI survey of nearly 1,800 found 85% thought the NHS should be protected from cuts. And 59% said they supported tax rises as a way of achieving that. The poll was conducted for the Health Foundation think tank. Read more from BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle .

BBC Breakfast

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid tells BBC Breakfast the Conservatives' plans to require pornographic websites to adopt age-restrictions would "ensure that the rules that already exist in the offline world" apply online.

Websites would have to check "in a sensible and effective way" that users are over 18, and an independent regulator would be established.

He says research on the effects of online pornography on young people show it "is changing the way they think about sex and relationships".

Liberal Democrat Care Minister Norman Lamb tells BBC Breakfast his party has "anchored the government in the centre ground" as part of the coalition since 2010.

The Conservatives and Labour have come under pressure over post-election deals.

Labour has called on the Tories to "come clean" over whether they would team up with UKIP, while the Tories have warned a Labour-SNP deal would destabilise the country.

Lib Dem candidate Mr Lamb also does not relish the SNP in power in Westminster, asking: "Do the public ultimately want a party that is dedicated to breaking up the United Kingdom working for the whole of the United Kingdom in government?"

BBC Radio 4 Today

Christine Blower from the National Union of Teachers tells Radio 4's Today that the power to create schools should be given back to councils. The NUT thinks it is for local councils to decide where schools need to be opened. All schools should be in the local democratic system, she argues.

BBC Radio 4 Today

On Radio 4's Today programme, Toby Young from the Spectator - who has co-founded three free schools - says he is concerned the institutions may not be safe if Labour is in government after the election. He says his concerns are based not on what the party has said, but "what they might do".

Image source, Getty Images

BBC political correspondent Ellie Price tells BBC Breakfast Labour has already pledged to build 200,000 more houses per year by 2020.

The scheme to fund 125,000 new homes for first time-buyers in England would be based on the first-time buyer ISAs announced by George Osborne, which sees the government top up money people save towards a deposit to buy their first house.

She says Labour plans to ask banks to invest the money in housing, to help first-time buyers and those facing what Ed Miliband has described as "sky high rents".

"Ed Miliband says the only way to solve this issue is by building more houses," she adds.

The Conservatives are proposing that pornography websites be required to adopt age-restriction controls or face closure . Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said the party would ensure under-18s were prevented from seeing adult content. The plan is targeted at both UK-based and overseas websites and would be introduced if the Tories remain in power after the general election. It follows a recent Childline poll which showed a tenth of 12 to 13-year-olds were worried they are addicted to pornography. The NSPCC has welcomed the proposal but warned it could be difficult to apply it to foreign outlets.

Scottish Labour Leader Jim Murphy has said the Telegraph story about Nicola Sturgeon is a "devastating revelation that exposes the uncomfortable truth behind the SNP's general election campaign."

He adds: "For months Nicola Sturgeon has been telling Scots she wants rid of David Cameron yet behind closed doors with foreign governments she admits she wants a Tory government."

BBC Scotland's James Cook says a source close to the first minister described civil service minutes of her meeting with the French ambassador as making "no mention of a discussion of Ms Sturgeon's preference for prime minister".

"The source said the minutes showed the discussion focused on the possibility of a referendum on British membership of the European Union," adds Cook.

The source insists the Telegraph story is "completely false".

Image source, Press Association

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon hasfirmly denieda claim in the Daily Telegraph that she told a French diplomat she would prefer David Cameron as prime minister over Ed Miliband. The newspaper claims to have seen a memo detailing the private conversation. But Ms Sturgeon said the story is "categorically, 100% untrue". French officials have also said she did not express a preference for UK prime minister.