Exclusive: Leader challenges Labour to match £500m pledge, to be paid for with US-inspired share buyback tax

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Liberal Democrats would extend free school meals to all primary schoolchildren, starting with those in poverty, Ed Davey has said in a challenge to Labour to match the pledge.

Speaking in his first newspaper interview of the general election campaign, the Lib Dem leader announced a manifesto policy aimed at nearly 1 million more children living in poverty in England and their families.

The sex and relationships educator Jo Morgan discusses what she believes a sex education curriculum should look like

Last week, Rishi Sunak’s government issued new draft guidance on sex education. It included a ban on teaching sex education before children are nine years old and a ban on teaching “gender ideology”.

Jo Morgan is the author of Empowering Relationships and Sex Education: a Practical Guide for Secondary School Teachers and the founder of the consultancy Engendering Change.

The struggling NHS, the climate crisis, education and childcare will be among the issues on voters’ minds

Rishi Sunak has sought to frame the Conservatives as the party of the future and one that can be trusted with the economy and national security.

The prime minister, who once billed himself as the “change candidate” and unsuccessfully tried to distance himself from years of Conservative rule, now claims his party’s experience in government makes it more likely than Labour to have a secure plan for the future.

‘Heavy-handed’ crackdown ignores underlying reasons for failure to attend classes, say critics

Some schools in England are sending police to the homes of children who are persistently absent, or warning them their parents may go to prison if their attendance doesn’t improve, the Observer has learned.

Headteachers say they are now under intense pressure from the government to turn around the crisis in attendance, with a record 150,000 children at state schools classed as severely absent in 2022-23. From September, all state schools in England will have to share their attendance records every day with the Department for Education.