LABOUR leader Ed Miliband today threw down the gauntlet to David Cameron - and said the offer of live head-to-head TV debate ahead of the General Election in ten days' time was "still on the table".

As Mr Miliband visited Stockton South to launch his sixth election pledge - to tackle the housing crisis - he was asked by nine-year-old Leon Driscoll, from Newcastle, if he thought Cameron was "chicken" for avoiding a live head-to-head debate with his main rival.

He answered: "He knows where I am, he knows where the television studios are and I have said right up to the election I would do it. We are actually going to be on the same channel, with the same audience, with the same moderator, in a back to back rather than face to face debate because he doesn't want to be on at the same time as me.

"The offer is still on the table."

Mr Miliband was referring to the Leaders Special Question Time on the BBC on Thursday.

The Labour leader was visiting Stockton South - a key battleground constituency with a Conservative majority of just 332 - to outline his newly-announced sixth election pledge on housing.

In a speech at Stockton's Arc theatre in front of Labour party supporters, he said if elected, the party would build one million new homes by 2020 and described how nine-in ten first time buyers would be helped, by abolishing stamp duty for them on properties under £300,000.

He said private tenants would be helped by more secure three-year tenancies, with rents fixed in advance, to stop real-term rent rises by private landlords.

"We will fight exploitation wherever we find it," he said, as he pledged to stop tax avoidance by landlords, which he said was costing the economy £500m a year.

And he said he would help stop property speculators by offering half of all new homes built in an area to people who had lived there for more than three years.