PARLIAMENTARY candidates locked horns in a lively debate at Cirencester College.

Candidates from the parties that will battle in out in this May’s general election were put through their paces in a packed hall at the Sundial Theatre.

Prospective MPs for the Cotswolds Paul Hodgkinson (LD), Manjinder Kang (Lab), Chris Harlow (UKIP) and Penny Burgess (Green) were quizzed on everything from education to the NHS in an hour and a half long husting.

Stroud Neil Carmichael (Con) MP was standing in for incumbent MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown as he was “carrying out his parliamentary duties”.

The debate was styled on Question Time, with English teacher John Pitt distributing the student’s questions as chair.

Candidates began to get heated when student Hugo Ramsay asked: “If elected, what would be your future plans for education?”

Mr Hodgkinson, also a district and country councillor, said: “Education needs to be a fair system; you should not be penalised for what you want to do.

“I want to make sure that children are looked after from the cradle to college so that it is not just STEM [science, technology, education, and maths] subjects that get the attention.”

Mr Carmichael said that despite an increase in tuition fees, under the Conservatives more people were applying for university and more of those were from deprived backgrounds.

An ex-student at Cirencester College, Ms Burgess said that all children should have a good local school to attend.

She said: “School is not about creating workers for employment but about bringing you out as people.”

Mr Kang, from Tamworth, West Midlands, vowed that Labour would decrease university tuition fees to £6,000.

The students, clearly engaged, asked further questions on zero-hour contracts, immigration and defence.

One student asked: “At what point will we start to put environment issues before economic targets? What policies do the parties have for literally saving the planet?”

Mr Harlow responded: “I have two friends in the environmental sector who are what you might call environmental sceptics - let’s not forget that the climate has been changing since the Earth began.

“I know not all scientists think the same as me but a lot do.” Mr Hodgkinson said that climate change was the biggest challenge facing the planet.

Asked by a student if they thought the voting age should go down to 16, the Lib Dems, Labour and Greens said they would be in favour, while UKIP was “undecided” and Mr Carmichael said that he was personally for it, but his party wasn’t.

Chair John Pitt, said: “It is really important that we do these things, it’s about engaging people in the political process and it’s an important part of our democracy.”