New debates schedule: leaders face first grilling next week, but no Miliband v Cameron

A new schedule and format for the televised leaders’ debates is expected to be published later this morning – and we understand it has already been agreed by the parties.

The first ‘debate’ should now take place next week, on March 26th, co-hosted by Sky News and Channel 4 and presented by Jeremy Paxman. Rather than a real debate, however, the show would feature Paxman interviewing David Cameron and Ed Miliband separately, with questions from a studio audience.

This would be followed by the debate Downing St announced Cameron had agreed to earlier in the week: a seven person debate on April 2nd featuring Cameron and Miliband, but also the leaders of UKIP, the Green Party, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the DUP. It does not seem that the Lib Dems have agreed to appear.

On April 30th, a week before polling day, Cameron, Miliband and Nick Clegg will appear in separate half hour segments on a Question Time style programme where they will be grilled by members of the public. This will be a BBC programme hosted by David Dimbleby.

There is also expected to be a debate of the smaller parties on April 16th, featuring the SNP, UKIP, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the DUP.

Labour, although having agreed to take part, will be unhappy that no head-to-head debate between Cameron and Miliband has been scheduled.

UPDATE Saturday March 21st: Sky News have now confirmed the first event for March 26th. A Labour spokesperson has released a statement saying:

“After weeks of pressure from the Conservative Party, Channel 4 and Sky have indicated to us that they are unwilling to stick to their commitment of 6th March to proceed with the head-to-head debate programme if David Cameron refused to take part.

“We have therefore, and with great reluctance, agreed to a change in the format of the programme on the 30th April.

“David Cameron and Ed Miliband will now attend the same programme and take the same questions from the same audience.

“But due to the cowardice of David Cameron the two leaders will not be on stage at the same time to debate each other. 

“The Conservative Party has also objected to the second debate on the 16th April.

“We have made clear we will attend this second debate. But, again at the Conservative Party’s insistence, Nick Clegg is to be excluded.

“The whole country will understand the reasons for this: the Prime Minister wants to minimise the scope televised debates between himself and Ed Miliband.

“We hope that even at this late stage David Cameron will rethink both his decision not to take part on the 16th April and to veto Nick Clegg’s participation.

“The Prime Minister’s repeated attempts to dictate the abandonment of these TV programmes to independent broadcasters is deeply worrying.

“After the election Labour will seek to put future election debate programmes on a statutory footing so that this can never happen again and the debates will take place whether or not any particular leader chooses to take part.”