Image source, UK POOL

In the Q&A in Devon, Sunak is asked about his party trailing Labour in the polls.

The prime minister says: "The only poll that matters is the one on 4 July."

He says he's focused on that date, as well as delivering for the public, before adding: "I'm not worried about the polls."

He accuses Labour of having no plan and says the Tories are determined to "deliver a more secure future", and says the choice at this election is, "who do you trust to stick to a good plan" and "take the bold decisions?"

Image source, UK Pool

Sunak is asked by a member of the audience about his party's plans for national service for 18-year-olds.

The woman asking the question admits that she's "undecided" on the plans.

The PM says every young person will have a choice to do the military component for a year or roles in "civic resilience".

He says that it will allow young people to "get a new range of skills that will set them up for life".

"Service gives you purpose," he adds, saying it's good for young people to "contribute to something bigger than yourself".

• Read more about the national service plan here

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent

As we've just been hearing Rishi Sunak discuss one of his flagship policies, it's worth pointing out that one of the most important cross-party Parliamentary committees says the Home Office does not have a credible plan to implement the Rwanda scheme.

In a highly critical report, external, the Public Accounts Committee says the government’s accommodation plan for asylum seekers had fallen “woefully short of reality”.

One site had cost ten times more than the original price tag of £5m.

The committee’s warnings have been published as part of the winding up of Parliamentary business.

Figures from the National Audit Office, the spending watchdog, show the government has so far spent £310m on the Rwanda scheme - £290m of which has been given to the African country.

Sunak says the Conservative's plan to send people who arrive in the UK illegally on small boats to Rwanda is "bold", adding "we've got to make it crystal clear that if you come to our country you won't be able to stay".

He says that across Europe, "the penny has dropped that that is the right approach", but he adds "the one person who hasn't got that message is Keir Starmer".

He says Labour's plan would make the UK "the soft touch of Europe and a magnet for migrants across the continent".

Image source, UK Pool

We're taking you to the South West now where Rishi Sunak is currently holding a Q&A in Devon.

The prime minister is speaking to voters about a range of issues, including defence, immigration and the economy.

He opens by saying the Conservatives have restored economic stability and the question now is, "where do we go from here?"

"Who do you trust to turn that foundation into a secure future for you and your families?" he asks voters.

You can watch the Q&A live by clicking the play button at the top of this page.

Image source, PA Media

Let's head north to Scotland where MSPs have agreed to hand Michael Matheson a record ban from Holyrood for breaching its expenses policy.

The former Scottish health secretary - sanctioned over an £11,000 data bill charged to his parliamentary iPad - is to be banned from Holyrood for 27 sitting days and will have his salary withdrawn for 54 days.

The SNP did not vote for the sanction and called for a review of the complaints process, arguing it was open to bias and prejudice.

The punishment, recommended by the standards committee, was passed in the chamber by 64 votes in favour, with no votes against.

The SNP successfully amended the motion to include complaints about the process, but abstained from voting on the final amended version.

• Read more here

Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams has accused Labour of "underhanded scheming" after reports that Diane Abbott would not be able to stand for the Labour Party.

As we've reported, Keir Starmer has said that no decision had been taken to bar Abbott but earlier, the Labour MP told the BBC she had been barred from standing for the party.

Williams accuses the Labour Party of having "always tried to control and cancel principled candidates", referring to when Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney MP Gerald Jones beat Beth Winter to be the candidate in the new constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Upper Cynon last June.

"Labour’s underhanded scheming against their own members for this election is worse than anything I have seen in my 23 years in frontline politics," Williams says, adding that he "greatly admired" Abbott for "standing up for what is right".

Here's a bit more from that Labour news conference we mentioned in our earlier post.

In the Q&A section afterwards, a reporter asks shadow minister Darren Jones whether he wants to see veteran MP Diane Abbott running for Labour at the general election.

"Diane has had the whip restored, she's a member of the parliamentary party again," Jones says. "If she wants to talk to the Labour Party about standing at the next election, I'm sure that conversation will be taking place."

As a reminder: Abbott texted a BBC reporter earlier to say she had been barred by Labour from standing for the party at the general election. But when asked if this was true, party leader Keir Starmer said "no" and that "no decision had been taken". We've contacted the party to ask for clarity.

Labour estimate of Conservative pledges rise againpublished at 16:25 British Summer Time 29 May

16:25 BST 29 May

If you’ve been following the campaign closely, you’ll know that Labour has claimed that the Conservatives have made “unfunded spending pledges” of £46bn and then raised it to £64bn. Well, as outlined in our last post, that estimate's now increased to £71bn.

The trouble is that the Conservatives have not said that these things will be carried out in full in the next Parliament - and manifestoes for the election won't be published for a few weeks.

Here's where the £71bn comes from:

• £46bn from abolishing National Insurance, which the Tories say is an aspiration and will not happen before economic growth makes it affordable
• £10bn to abolish inheritance tax because the chancellor said it was “profoundly anti-Conservative”, but did not say whether it would be in the manifesto
• £8bn for removing “distortions” in the tax system on those earning between £60,000 and £125,000, but Hunt has said he'd like to do something about that but not how much if any of that would happen in the next Parliament
• £5bn on removing green levies from household energy bills, because the energy secretary said she was considering it two months ago
• The rest comes from spending on things like apprenticeships, a new personal tax allowance for pensioners and national service, although the Conservatives have given some funding details for those

Sticking with Labour for now, let's take you to a last-minute news conference that the party arranged in London this afternoon.

Shadow Treasury chief secretary Darren Jones, leading it, highlighted the costs associated with policies set out by PM Rishi Sunak during the election campaign.

He claimed the Tories had so far promised "£71bn of unfunded spending commitments" and warned that could result in a 2.5% point hike to interest rates.

He also warned that the Tories "had not learned the lessons" from former PM Liz Truss's short stint in power, which resulted in a period of political and economic turbulence, forcing her to ditch tax cuts that sent financial markets into a tailspin.

The Tories will send the economy "sliding back into recession," he told reporters, and ordinary people will see their mortgage bills rising again: "Liz Truss's kamikaze budget is now being followed by Rishi Sunak's kamikaze manifesto."

The Conservatives are yet to respond.

Labour’s 10 million waiting list warning 'unlikely' - think tankpublished at 16:05 British Summer Time 29 May

16:05 BST 29 May

Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting warned today that “there is a genuine risk based on Rishi Sunak's performance to date, that we’ll see NHS waiting lists rise as high as 10 million”.

The projection is based on looking at the change in the number of people on English waiting lists since October 2022 - the month Sunak became PM - and assuming that this number will continue to grow at the same rate for the next five years.

But waiting lists have started to fall in recent months.

And leading economic research group the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) reckons that Labour’s forecast is "highly unlikely".

"The NHS is now managing to treat lots more people each month than it was a few years ago," says Ben Zaranko, of the IFS.

He thinks waiting lists are likely to "start falling at a steady rate over the coming years ... because the numbers of people leaving the list each month will be greater than the number of people joining".

Image source, Reuters

In the West Midlands, where Labour have been campaigning today, Wes Streeting has been pictured in front of a van emblazoned with Labour's pledge to cut NHS wait times.

The shadow health secretary tells those gathered that the health service is "on the ballot" for Labour, and urges voters not to "give the matches back to the arsonists to finish the job".

"If you want to put out a fire, you turn to the fire brigade, and that fire brigade is the Labour party," he says.

Vans and buses are particularly popular with candidates on the campaign trail - memorable ones include Harriet Harman's pink van in 2015 and Boris Johnson's 2019 election bus (nicknamed the battle bus).

Hannah Miller
Political correspondent, reporting from Mid Wales

The Liberal Democrats have a track record of being, well, more liberal than some other parties when it comes to their stance on cannabis.

But when it came to Rishi Sunak’s plan to gradually ban smoking, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey voted in favour.

There’s a "big difference" between cannabis and cigarettes, he told me today - when I asked if he was still in favour of legalising weed given that he’s clearly less keen on tobacco.

Asked three times, he didn’t directly answer whether he’s still in favour of a regulated cannabis market, saying that the party is "going to take the best medical advice".

Is that a yes? We’ll have to wait for the manifesto, as the parties try to stick to the script on the policy announcements they’ve scheduled for each day.

Image source, PA Media

Also in Scotland, former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon says she'll be on the campaign trail - but refuses to answer a question about whether she'll be seen alongside Scottish First Minister John Swinney.

It comes a month after Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell was charged by police with embezzling funds from the SNP.

Sturgeon, Scotland's former and longest-serving FM, tells reporters she'll support candidates where necessary "from time to time" ahead of the vote.

Pressed on whether she'll campaign alongside Swinney, she says of her former deputy: "John will have his own programme and I will campaign in ways that I think are helpful to candidates."

Sturgeon was arrested in June last year when she voluntarily arranged with Police Scotland to be questioned as part of the investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP. She was released without charge.

Image source, PA Media

As we reported earlier, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have announced their first head-to-head TV debate for Tuesday evening at 21:00 BST.

Scotland's First Minister John Swinney now says the SNP is making "strenuous representations" to try to secure a spot in other television general election debates.

Speaking at the opening of the Levenmouth rail line in Fife, Swinney says: "I think it's ridiculous that the third party in UK politics has been excluded from the debates that are being taken forward.

"We're making strenuous representations to the broadcasters about that point and we'll continue to do so."

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify

Image source, .

We are a week into the campaign and you’d probably struggle to spot the difference with a magnifying glass on the BBC’s poll tracker.

On average, the polls suggest Labour’s lead is about 21 points over the Conservatives.

Of the 12 companies whose polls make up our latest averages, nine completed their work at least a day after Rishi Sunak called the election - but we don’t yet have more than a handful concluded since the policy pledges and speeches by the parties over the bank holiday.

Image source, POOL

As our correspondent Nick Eardley reported earlier (see 14:16 BST post), the Diane Abbott row is somewhat overshadowing today's Labour campaign.

Now, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden says Keir Starmer has “clearly been lying to people” about Abbott's status within the party.

Holden says that because Starmer sits on Labour’s National Executive Committee, he knows the full picture.

“The idea that he didn’t know what was going on is clearly nonsense,” Holden says.

As we reported earlier, Starmer told broadcasters that “no decision has been taken to bar Diane Abbott”.

Read a full recap of the row here.

Back to Scotland, where the fate of former health secretary Michael Matheson is dominating the campaign trails today.

It emerged recently that the SNP will not back sanctions against Matheson for breaching the Scottish Parliament's expenses policy.

There'd been confusion about whether or not they were going to support the standards committee recommendation for a 27-day parliamentary ban and the withdrawal of salary for 54 days, after an £11,000 bill was racked up on Matheson's parliamentary iPad.

However, it's now emerged the Scottish government will call for a review of the complaints process, arguing it was open to bias and prejudice, but won't back the final motion when it comes to the vote at Holyrood later.

In an interview with BBC Scotland today, First Minister John Swinney insists he “won’t be supporting the sanctions that are put in place”. You can follow the Holyrood debates here.

Image source, PA Media

As the head of the Royal College of Nursing tries to become an MP (see previous post), the British Medical Association says junior doctors in England will go on a five-day strike next month.

Writing on X, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins describes the BMA’s decision as a “highly cynical tactic” - and calls on Labour to “finally condemn” the junior doctor strikes.

She writes: "Announcing this during an election and on Labour's health day shows this was only ever political and not about patients or staff."