Less than two days to go until polling opens. I'm joined by a conservative candidate and Health Minister, Maria Caulfield, who's in Lewis in East Sussex. Good morning to you.

Good morning.

How important to you is work-life balance?

It is pretty important, but I would say as a minister, it's not really that feasible. I know that probably what you're alluding to is Kierstam was saying he's going to be doing a four-day week and I'm finishing at 6:00 every evening.

No, he didn't say a four-day week. He said he was going to finish work at 6:00 on a Friday, like many people do. I believe that's to help his wife observe her Jewish faith, which is common place amongst Jewish people. So not a four-day week. That's not true.

I'm a person of faith as well. The work-life balance is extremely important, but he has indicated that he wants to have a more flexible working-life approach. That's just not possible. I'm just a junior minister and I work seven days a week, often close to 20 hours days at times. It is slightly concerning that that's the approach he's taken. He's never been a minister. He probably is not aware of the extreme pressures that you're under. Yes, it's important. Of course, it's important. You make better decisions when you have a good work-life balance. But when you're running the country, you do have to put country before your party and a lot of other things as well.

Before your family.

I'm a carer, too, so I've got a a lot of responsibilities. But yes, your family does suffer. There's no doubt about it that when you're in a ministerial role, your family does suffer.

Does that set a good example, though? Job first, family second. What are the most important things in life, if not your family, your children? And he's a dad of school-aged children. So surely you wouldn't begrudge the man if he does become Prime Minister spending time with his kids.

Well, Rishi Sunak is also a father of two young children, and he has talked about how difficult that is. But if you're given the privilege to, firstly, serve as a member of Parliament, and a member of Parliament is often a seven-day-a-week job just on its own, looking after your constituency. But if on top of that, you've got ministerial responsibility, That's a real privilege and such an important job to do. To do it well, you do need to put in the hours. Very often I do my ministerial box probably after I get in from work at 10 o'clock at night. Some of those decisions need to be made by the next morning. Something fundamentally wrong there, isn't it?

In terms of setting an example about work-life balance. Why in this country do we champion working all the hours God sends? Maybe when you're working unsustainable hours as a minister, that's why so many of your conservative colleagues have decided it's just not worth it again and they're not running in the election.

Well, I think you are right that there are many MPs who've done this for a number of years now, particularly as the party who've been in government, that choose that they do need that work-life balance and that sustained pressure is not sustainable. But you get many professions like this. I worked in the NHS as a nurse. I know doctors and nurses, GPs all work long hours. That is a way of life. If you've got an incredibly pressurized job, I'm sure the England football team, for example, will be doing long hours in training and practice. That is sometimes the reality. What I find depressing sometimes as a minister is sometimes when the media portray MPs as lazy on the make, not really doing a huge amount. And yet they really do know how many long hours we all do behind the scenes. And when they say the chamber is empty, they know we're in select committees, they know We're in other debates in the House of Commons. And yet that's the narrative that's portrayed of MPs and ministers. And I think many in the Labor Party, if they were to form a government after Friday, will wake up and see the reality of just what a tough job it is.

Well, they're probably going to, aren't they? Looking at the polls, it's going to happen. I mean, it's just damaged limitation for the Conservatives right now, isn't it, Maria Caulfield?

Well, the polls haven't shifted. We acknowledge that. When I'm on the doorstep, people are frustrated at a period of time, particularly since COVID, where they've had a really tough time, whether it's two years virtually of lockdown and then straight into the war in Ukraine and the impact that's had on energy bills. But when I say to people who say to me, Why haven't we got lower taxes, for example, and they're very pleased that we're starting to cut taxes with the national insurance cut, when you say to them, But actually for two years, we paid furlough, people's wages for two years, and then half of everyone's energy bills for another year, they recognize that we've had to make difficult choices. And as soon as we've been able to, with inflation coming down, we are starting to cut taxes, and we're the only party doing that. Labor are not committing to that in their manifesto. Yes, they won't increase income tax, but they're not saying what they'll do with fuel duty, with council tax, with the thresholds for pensioners. There is a choice for people this Thursday. If they want to see their taxes come down, then the Conservatives are the only ones offering that.

Labor have been really cagey about this.

Wez Streeting will join me in an hour's time, and I'll be talking to him about some of this stuff as well. Although let's not forget that under the conservative government, and sure things need paying for, but the tax burden is the highest. It's been for something like 70 years. Some things you haven't paid for over the course of 14 years of public services. We had the period of austerity from 2010 onwards.

I agree with you there. Go ahead. As a health minister, we've got £190 billion a year that's going into the health service. In mental Health alone, which is my area, we're putting an extra 2.3 billion a year into mental health services. Of course, you can always spend more, but it's what you do with that money that makes the difference, not how much you put in. But it's not true to say that we've not been funding public health.

31,000 nursing jobs still unfilled. You've been a nurse before. I know you stepped up during the pandemic as well. Would you go back to nursing again in the NHS in the future?

Yeah, I still do shifts. I still got my registration, absolutely. But those vacancies are We're still standstill vacancies. We're creating more roles as well. When you open up 100 community diagnostic centers or 116 rapid diagnostic centers and over 100 surgical hubs, you need more nurses.

There's filling them, though, because Because people don't want to become nurses. The junior doctors are still in strike for the umptenth time. People don't want to do these jobs.

Well, we've got waiting lists for people to train as doctors, and that's why we're doubling medical school placements, because every year we're having to turn students away who want to train as doctors. So doubling those places is something that we're doing, and you have to have the clinical placements to be able to do that. The same with nurses. We've got now nurse apprenticeship routes into nursing, and they are extremely popular. We've got a waiting list in Cornwall for midwives trying to get on to train as midwives. It's not true to say people don't want to do these jobs, but it does take a few years to train nurses, midwives, physios, doctors. That's why we're seeing an increase in doctors in the NHS. We met our manifesto target of 50,000 extra nurses. I think it was something like 75,000 extra nurses since the last flexion.

I'm sorry to hurry you. Sorry to interrupt. We're almost out of time, but I need to ask you very quickly about the postal vote situation. Your colleague, Kevin Holyrake, the Postal Affairs Minister, criticizing the Royal Mail for not seeming to be able to deliver these on time, especially in Scotland, where, as you know, it's school holidays now and people are away and not getting the chance to send their vote back. What do you think?

Well, Kevin is taking this very seriously. He's in direct contact with the Royal Mail. It doesn't seem to be an issue in my constituency, but I know a number of colleagues where people haven't received their postal votes and are worried about that. And once you've got on a postal vote, you then can't apply for a proxy. So Kevin is investigating this urgently. I know there's extra resources going into this to try and go do a sweep of all the sorting offices and make sure they're out there. And if people have only just received their postal vote, they can take it to their polling station on election day and it will still be counted. So just to reassure your viewers that if they've only just received them and they're worried they won't get back in time, do take them to a polling station and they will be accepted.

I mean, that's if they can get there, if they're not away, of course. Maria Caulfield, thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.