Nick Clegg has accused the Tories of acting in a “deceitful” way over their plans for £12bn in welfare cuts, as he defended the decision of his ally Danny Alexander to expose previous Conservative proposals to impose cuts to child benefit.
The deputy prime minister spoke of his anger and frustration at the Tory tactics as he confirmed that the Lib Dems would “tread warily” if they formed another coalition with the Conservatives.
Clegg criticised the Tories on his weekly LBC radio phone-in after Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, took the extraordinary step of lifting the lid on Tory plans for £8bn welfare reductions, including slashing child benefit and child tax credits.
Ed Miliband seized on the disclosure to say that child benefit and tax credit would now be on the ballot paper next week. The Labour leader, who hopes for a repeat of the late surge to Labour in the 2010 campaign amid fears of Tory cuts to tax credits, said: “Today we’ve learned that child benefit and tax credits are on the ballot paper next week. The Tories have drawn up plans to take thousands of pounds away from millions of families.
“The Tories’ secret plan has been revealed. And they will put it into practice in just seven days’ time if they get the chance. It’s the final proof that working families can’t afford five years of the Tories.”
Alexander revealed that in June 2012, members of the quad – the inner group of the four most senior cabinet members – were sent a paper by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, entitled “Welfare Reform Quad Summer Reading Pack” setting out the plans.
The Tories accused Alexander of resorting to “desperate tactics” as the Lib Dems face the loss of as many as half of their 57 seats in the election. A Conservative spokesman said: “We don’t recognise any of these proposals and to be absolutely clear, they are definitely not our policy.”
George Osborne, the chancellor, said the document was commissioned by Alexander. Speaking on BBC London at an event in Croydon, he said: “This is a three-year-old document of policy options that was commissioned by the chief secretary himself. We haven’t put into practice any of these options, we don’t support them. We didn’t support them then and we don’t support them in the future.” The Lib Dems denied the claim.
Clegg strongly supported Alexander as he said he shared his ally’s “intense frustration verging on anger” over the Tories’ pledge to impose £12bn of welfare cuts in the next parliament without spelling out who would be hit.
He told LBC: “I share Danny’s intense frustration verging on anger that the Conservatives say it is okay a week before an election to say that they are going to take the equivalent of £1,500 off 8 million of the most vulnerable families in this country and they can’t even be bothered to spell out to the families – with folk who are disabled, with children, those who have fallen on hard times – they can’t even be bothered to spell out exactly what their plans involve.
“It is deceitful of the Conservatives … It is wrong of the Conservatives to try and pull the wool over people’s eyes.”
The move by the Lib Dems to highlight details from negotiations among senior ministers in the quad will complicate the formation of another coalition with the Tories after the election. The Times reported that senior figures in the party would be wary of the two parties working together again.
Clegg said: “I don’t think that article said anything that I don’t know and don’t believe myself. Any decision by the Liberal Democrats to enter into any new coalition of course would be taken collectively. I actually share a lot of the wariness that is reflected in that article, given the ups and downs the Liberal Democrats have had. Of course you would tread warily by entering into another coalition. But we are not going to rule out another coalition with either Labour or the Conservatives because we are pluralists.”
The proposed Tory cuts highlighted by Alexander included:
- Limiting support to two children in child benefit and child tax credits – so cutting up to £3,500 from a family with three children.
- Removing the higher rate child benefit from the first child – an average cut of more than £360 for every family with children.
- Means testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two-child, middle-income family.
- Removing child benefit from 16-to-19-year-olds – a cut of more than £1,000 for parents of a single child.
The Conservative party has been under sustained pressure to detail how it would cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-2018, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) confirmed this week that the Tories have so far disclosed only 10% of these reductions in the form of a two-year freeze in working age benefits.
Alexander defended his decision to highlight the Tory plans from 2012 as he challenged David Cameron to spell out in the Question Time election special on Thursday night how the Tories would deliver £12bn in welfare cuts.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning: “I saw in the Institute for Fiscal Studies report the other day: they said for welfare savings on this scale you would need to look at child benefit or child tax credits or working age benefits.
“In the absence of the Conservative party coming clean it is right that this sort of thing is put into the public domain. The easiest way to clear this up would be for David Cameron perhaps tonight when he is on Question Time to explain in detail what are the £12bn savings he has in mind.
“Of course no one knows what the Tories have in mind for their £12bn of welfare savings because extraordinarily in an election campaign they have said they can find this figure.
“They have said nothing about how they constructed that figure or on what basis they think that is acceptable. They have said nothing about the millions of working families in this country who would be hit hard by big reductions in child benefit, who would be hit very hard indeed if they attacked child tax credits.
“They haven’t said anything to the disabled people in this country who would be affected if those were the benefits they chose to try and target.
“I think therefore it is incumbent on the Conservative party, if it wishes to be responsible, to spell out what it is going to do.
“At the moment people will conclude that it is either being reckless or deceitful: reckless because it does not know what it wants to do or deceitful because it knows but is not telling us.”
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion