FOUR candidates battling for your votes at the General Election went head-to-head in a Guardian debate last week.

Labour’s Sam Rushworth, Green Party candidate Nigel Hennerley and independent candidate Quentin Abel joined Liberal Democrat representative – and former Tatton candidate – Roger Barlow at the Guardian offices to take readers’ questions.

Conservative candidate Esther McVey was unable to attend the rescheduled event, organised after a hustings event scheduled to take place at Knutsford Academy on May 26 was cancelled in the wake of the Manchester Arena attack.

Candidates debated topics such as school funding and HS2, while all were also given the opportunity to deliver opening and closing statements.

Schools in east Cheshire stand to become the very lowest-funded in the country under new proposals put forward last year, before the election was called.

Mr Hennerley said: “Knutsford Academy and Wilmslow High School stand to lose about £1.7 million, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

“We are the fifth-richest economy on the planet. There is no excuse for us not to be able to fund our education properly. That includes giving our students the opportunity to go to university without being saddled with a lifetime of debt.”

The Liberal Democrats assured voters that the party would not push on with school cuts, and said that ‘time has moved on’ from grammar schools.

Mr Barlow: “It’s not just a case of ‘we need more resources’, we should not be spending it on free schools and certainly not on grammar schools.”

Putting across Labour’s points of view, Mr Rushworth said: “The cuts that are being proposed are absolutely catastrophic for our local schools.

“You cannot make efficiency savings of these sorts of sums of money. Without any doubt there will be teachers being cut and bigger class sizes.

“This is a completely, regressive backwards step that will create a two-tier system, and it is so, so unnecessary.”

Mr Abel said: “Our children are our future – it’s as simple as that. We need to make sure we are looking after these kids. I was shocked and horrified at the removal of the free lunches.

“This is an area where I feel a great deal of passion. This is something we need to fight for.”

Click here to watch the hour-long debate in full.