I would say it was all PR, so they could say, “we have signed on and we want a debate”. In every single election we've had so far, all the leaders have said they want to debate, they will debate. They see the merit in debating, but the incumbent party always then finds an excuse or reason why they should not debate.
In the last election the then prime minister had said publicly in so many places, including in her campaign, that she wanted to debate, that she would debate with the debates commission. Then when we finally had the meeting with her, we got a very long list of conditions under which she would debate, and they violated some of ours.