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BBC Breakfast

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls is now on BBC Breakfast talking about his party's proposal to end the non-domicile tax rule altogether. He’s not entirely clear about how much money this policy would bring in, keeping it as vague as “hundreds of millions of pounds”, although he does say at least one tax expert thinks it could be larger. “It’s very uncertain because we don’t know how much income people have here in this country, those people who aren’t paying tax in the same way as everybody else,” he says.

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Making struggling pupils take Sats resits in year seven could be accompanied by further checks on schools, Nicky Morgan also suggested on BBC Breakfast a little earlier. The education secretary said Ofsted ruled out endless resits but said the extra exams would be taken into account by the schools inspector. She then added: “It may be something for us, the department, to look at if the school is letting children down by not letting them get to the required standard.” Headteachers from other schools could be brought in to look at what’s going wrong, she suggested.

Ms Morgan made clear the policy was part of the Conservatives’ “wider plan” to improve standards - it does follow from the introduction of GCSE resits, after all. “It’s absolutely right for us to say to parents and students, ‘This is your chance at school to get to those required standards, they’re going to set you up for life.’ And I think it’s right to keep that pressure on,” she said.

The Independent

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

After the Easter weekend’s story about Nicola Sturgeon allegedly telling the French ambassador she wanted to see David Cameron remain in No 10, the prime minister has now weighed in. There’s a leak inquiry under way to establish who was behind the release of the memo, which also featured the suggestion that Ms Sturgeon didn't view Ed Miliband as “prime ministerial material”. Now the Independent has extracted the following comment, external from Mr Cameron - which the newspaper interprets as the PM "pointing the finger" at the Lib Dems about where the leak came from. When asked whether it might have been his coalition colleagues, he said:

It's all about the non-doms story on the front pages this morning. Take a look at the variations on a theme with our paper review .

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Proof of the culinary air to the campaign so far. Below you have George Osborne making pizza, David Cameron making a pie, Nigel Farage enjoying a UKIP cupcake, Nick Clegg doling out Easter eggs and Ed Miliband buying fish and chips.

Image source, PA

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Image source, Reuters

Image source, PA

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BBC News Channel

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has been explaining the Sats resits plans on BBC Breakfast. Secondary schools already receive £500 for every pupil whose basic literacy and numeracy isn’t quite up to scratch. Now they’ll have to help these children through “slimmed-down tests” in English and Maths taken in either the spring or summer term of year 7. “This is part of our overall drive to make sure that young people are getting the absolute basics right - and you can’t get much more basic and necessary than good English and Maths skills,” Ms Morgan explains.

Image source, PA

So what will Labour actually replace the non-dom rule with? Something fairly straightforward, Ed Miliband will say later. Anyone permanently resident in Britain will have to pay tax in the same way as everyone else from April 2016. There will still be some wiggle-room, though: temporary residents will only have to pay tax on what they earn here. Labour estimates the additional tax revenue will amount to “hundreds of millions of pounds”.

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The Conservatives are pushing their plan to force resits on children who fail their Sats tests at the end of primary school. If the Tories get into power, they’re promising pupils who didn’t quite make the grade will have to have another go in their first year of secondary school. It’s all in order to provide “more rigour” and “zero tolerance of failure and mediocrity” in our schools. More details here.

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Ross Hawkins
Political correspondent

It will be hard to tell whether we’ll end up with more tax revenue or whether those rich people will just leave the country. But this is going to be an important part of Labour’s effort to paint the Conservatives as the friends of the rich. George Osborne put up the charges on these so-called non-doms, so they now have to pay up to £90,000 a year. But Labour will be just waiting for a Conservative to come out and say "we must preserve this."

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In Scotland all the political talk is about last night’s STV debate between the four big party leaders. The big story came after Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy challenged the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon over whether she wanted Ed Miliband to be prime minister. "I don't want David Cameron to be prime minister, I'm offering to help make Ed Miliband prime minister,” she replied. "I've said to Ed Miliband and I'll say to Jim Murphy this evening, that if there is an anti-Tory majority in the House of Commons after the election, even if the Tories are the biggest party we will work with Labour to keep David Cameron out of Downing Street." Mr Murphy responded by saying Labour did not need the SNP’s “help”. But her very clear positioning raises all sorts of questions about which way Scottish voters will turn on 7 May. You can read our full story here.

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Wednesday morning’s big story is about Labour's plan to scrap the non-domiciles rule. Just so we’re clear, non-domiciles are UK residents who have their permanent home outside the UK. Right now, as the government website puts it, external, these "non-doms" “may not have to pay UK tax on foreign income”. That is a problem, Ed Miliband is set to argue later. He’ll use a speech at the University of Warwick to set out how:

• The rules allow some people to avoid tax even when they’re born, bred and brought up in the UK
• Those returning here and living abroad claim the status on the basis of an overseas subscription or foreign bank account
• Non-doms can exploit their status further by using offshore trusts to buy British homes, avoiding inheritance tax
• And they can loan themselves money and receive repayments tax-free

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