General election 2019 latest: Labour announces cap on school class sizes

The general election is a week today, but the new plans and promises from the main contenders are still coming thick and fast.

Labour is pledging to cap school class sizes in England at 30 pupils and to hire 20,000 extra teachers over five years to meet demand. Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner told BBC Breakfast that while the changes couldn’t be made “overnight”, a Labour government would immediately start “reversing the trend” of increasing class sizes and lack of spending seen under the Tories.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has outlined his plans for the Conservatives’ first 100 days of new government, promising tax cuts, a funding boost for schools and changes to laws relating to the release of serious offenders from prison. The party would also launch a review of defence, security and foreign policy, change the law to increase the amount that migrants pay to use the NHS, and begin cross-party talks on social care.

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A new Deltapoll study has put the Conservatives on course for a “small but workable” majority, City A.M. reports. The poll, commissioned by ToscaFund Asset Management, found that the Tories are set for a Commons majority of between five and 30 seats.

Over in the Liberal Democrats camp, Jo Swinson was grilled last night by the BBC’s Andrew Neil over her support for harsh cuts during her party’s five years in coalition government with the Conservatives up until 2015. The Lib Dem leader apologised for her record on austerity and said she would be continuing as leader even if her party lost seats at the general election.

But, as Isabel Hardman writes in The Spectator, “others in her party might not be so confident of that assertion”.