General Election 2015: No coalition deals without agreement on increased education spending, says Nick Clegg

Clegg announced he would not deal with any party that failed to boost 'cradle to college' funding

Nick Clegg was campaigning with candidate Vikki Slade at a nursery in Dorset on Monday (PA)

The Liberal Democrats issued their first “red line” post-election demand as they said they would only enter a coalition government which sharply increased education spending.

Nick Clegg abandoned his previous refusal to be drawn on potential coalition terms by announcing he would not deal with any party that failed to boost “cradle to college” funding.

The Lib Dems are pressing for the education budget for two-to-19 year-olds, covering nurseries, schools and colleges, to rise to more than £55bn by 2020, which is significantly more than Labour or the Tories propose.

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The move comes as polls suggest that his party could lose half the 57 seats it captured in 2010, including nearly all of their 11 Scottish constituencies.

Mr Clegg said: “I have decided we need to be increasingly clear and certain and categorical with people about what the Liberal Democrats will do after May 7 come hell or high water if people vote for the Liberal Democrats.”

He added: “I have been quite reluctant to talk about the language of ‘deal breakers’ and ‘red lines’ and so on. But I think it is now right in the final stages of the election to set out some core deal breakers for us.”

Under the Lib Dem plans, the English two-to-19 education budget would increase to keep pace with both inflation and the estimated 460,000 extra children entering the system over the next five years.

They want the budget to rise from £49.2bn to £55.3bn by 2020. Funding would be protected in real terms until 2017/18 and then increased above inflation in line with economic growth in the final two years of the parliament.

The Lib Dems are pressing for the education budget for two-to-19 year-olds to rise to more than £55bn by 2020 (Getty) (Getty Images)

Mr Clegg said: “We will not enter a coalition which is based on those Labour and Conservative cuts for education. That is a first major red line for us – we won’t enter into any governing arrangement that does not meet that funding test for support for nurseries, schools and colleges, from cradle to college.”