BBC Radio 4

UKIP's David Coburn takes centre stage with his answer to a question about the recent net migration figures. He said it was ridiculous that 624,000 people came to the UK and said it was comparable to the size of Liverpool and Aberdeen. He said that "regardless of ethnic background" the UK needed "quality people coming here" who are going to add something to the country.

"If we don't control our borders we don't know what's happening," he said.

BBC Radio 4

Also on Any Questions, Leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett drew cheers from the audience when she said: "Education is a public good. It should be paid for from progressive taxation."

UKIP's MEP for Scotland David Coburn also chipped in and said that UKIP would scrap tuition fees for students doing particular subjects as long as for five years after they graduate they paid their taxes and contributed to society.

Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds MP said she did not recognise the analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) which said it would be higher-earning graduates who would benefit from the changes.

"I don't buy that," she said.

"I do think we are under-estimating the anxiety of having that debt when you graduate from university. I don't understand why Ed Davey thinks that is a good thing."

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Energy secretary Ed Davey, a Lib Dem, came out all guns blazing to the first question from the audience about Labour's tuition fee policy announced today. He said the policy was a "nonsense", and would only favour the "future bankers" of this country because the only students who would see any benefit would be those who leave university and get a starting salary of £35,000. He said the average starting salary was £21,000. He described the policy as a "weird betrayal of Labour's values".

BBC Radio 4

Tonight on Any Questions Jonathan Dimbleby hosts political debate from Bristol University with the Leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett, UKIP's MEP for Scotland David Coburn, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey and Lib Dem MP and the Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds MP. Nuggets from the programme will be coming up here shortly.

As well as talking about further devolution for Wales today, David Cameron also addressed a conference of Welsh Conservatives in Cardiff, telling them the Tories were 'the party of Wales'.

The Prime Minister said the Conservatives were the "driving force" behind road and rail improvements and praised Wales' manufacturing industry, saying it was growing faster than France, Germany and other UK regions.

Robert Peston
Economics editor

One way of seeing Labour's tuition fee plan is that it is replacing £3.1bn of university financing via student loans with £3.1bn of financing from taxation - through a tax raid on pensions.

Image source, PA

The NHS would receive billions of extra funding if the Liberal Democrats have a hand in the next UK government, Nick Clegg has said. The Lib Dem leader pledged to give an additional £8bn to the health service in England - and an extra £450 million for Wales - by the end of the next parliament. Mr Clegg made the promise during a rally in Cardiff - where earlier, alongside Prime Minister David Cameron, he announced UK government plans to give more power to Wales.

Image source, Reuters

Although it was Nigel Farage's rallying speech which stole the show during today's UKIP conference. The audience also heard from Tory defector and UKIP MP Mark Reckless. He warned that the party will not grow unless it can shake off the taint of xenophobia and demonstrate it is the "party of the NHS".

Mr Reckless, who won a by-election in Rochester and Strood after defecting from the Conservatives, said currently voters knew UKIP wanted to leave the EU and cut immigration. Mr Reckless told activists: "There are two things most people know about us - we want to leave the European Union, and we want to cut immigration. We should talk about those things. But if we want to get beyond 20%-30% of the vote to the 40% or so we will need to win constituencies, we will have to explain why we want those things, challenge some of the misconceptions there are around our party, and talk about other things as well."

We are interested in your views on the political stories of the day. Get in touch by using the "Get Involved" tab at the top of the page.

Here's what Alison and David Foster had to say on Labour's tuition fee policy.

When will the real issue over student fees be discussed? The reason the current system massively disadvantages the poor is because they cannot afford to live on the tiny living allowance that can be borrowed under the scheme. The majority of university accommodation fees are more than the cost of living loan (forget eating and travelling!

Unless you come from a family that can afford several thousand to support their son/daughter's living costs, you'll have to find a job with a lot of hours to keep your head above the waterline. So, great that Labour will reduce your future loan bill, but none of the parties mention that it's only the middle class that can cope with the immediate costs of living as a student.

Image source, BBC News

The committee monitoring the security services has been taken in by the "glamour" of spying and is failing to do its job, its founder has said. Conservative MP David Davis said the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) had been "captured by the agencies they are supposed to be overseeing". He also said ex-chairman Sir Malcolm Rifkind acted as a "spokesman" for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ rather than a watchdog. Sir Malcolm said the criticisms were "ludicrous" and had no basis in fact. Get the full story here.

Image source, PA

Here's a bit more from the Chancellor George Osborne on Labour's hotly-debated tuition fee policy announced earlier today. The chancellor claimed the Labour's planned pension tax change - which is needed in order to reduce the fees - would hit "people on middle incomes - including nurses, teachers and firefighters".

He said: "Another Labour policy launch has collapsed into chaos. Far from hitting only the richest as Ed Miliband claimed, his new tax on pensions will hit many people on middle incomes including nurses, teachers and firefighters. So a tuition fees policy that only benefits better-off students is being paid for by hardworking taxpayers on middle incomes. It just shows that all Ed Miliband offers is higher taxes, more debt and the economic chaos those would bring."

Tweets, external: IFS unimpressed by Labour's tax, external raid on pensions

Megan Dutton, the vice president of the National Union of Students, welcomes Labour's plans, saying: "We welcome this policy as a step in the right direction, a step away from the failed experiment of fees and the marketisation of higher education."

A quick re-cap of the main political stories of the day:

• Labour has set out its plans to cut university fees in England from £9,000 a year to £6,000

• Ed Miliband says the universities wouldn't lose income and the cut would be paid for by lowering tax relief on pensions for high earners

• David Cameron says Labour has shown it's incompetent and that its policy would mean those who've gone on to good jobs and high earnings will, in effect, be subsidised by those with less money

• The Liberal Democrats say the idea is a terrible mistake and that the Treasury will hang on to the pensions money and not pass it on to universities

• In other news Nigel Farage has told his party's spring conference UKIP will get a "good number of MPs over the line" in the election and emerge as the "main opposition to the Labour Party" in the north of England

• In Wales, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been offering a new deal on devolution, including guaranteed minimum funding for the Welsh government, control of fracking and more energy projects.

In an interview with the BBC's chief political correspondent Vicki Young, UKIP's leader Nigel Farage said it "upsets" him that a growing number of people seem to think that UKIP is a racist party. "We are no such thing, we never have been, we never will be, in fact there is a growing number of ethnic minorities standing for us in elections," he said.

Bookmakers William Hill believe Nigel Farage will become an MP at the general election - quoting him at odds of 4/7 to win the South Thanet seat. And UKIP are also fancied to poll more votes than the Lib Dems, with the bookies offering odds of 2/7 for the party to do so, and 5/2 not to.

"UKIP's ever-growing impact on domestic politics has added a fascinating element to the general election campaign and they have been heavily backed to win five or more seats, which may give them a genuine chance of being involved in a coalition government", says Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe.

It's worth pointing out that Labour's pledge to cut fees relates to England only. Education is a devolved issue in the UK and students from Wales and Northern Ireland pay less than £4,000 a year in fees if they stay there to study, while those from Scotland pay no fees if they study there. If Welsh students want to study in England, the Welsh government covers the additional fees.

Tweets, external: Will middle middle class be miffed at Labour's raid on their pensions or pleased their student kids' debts to be cut?