George Osborne rejects Lib Dem 'child benefit cut' claim

• 11 minutes ago
• From the section Election 2015

 

George Osborne has rejected claims by the Lib Dem Danny Alexander that the Tories proposed to cut child benefit while they were in government together.

Mr Alexander, effectively Mr Osborne's deputy in coalition, said he was "lifting the lid" on Tory plans which included limiting child benefit and tax credits to two children.

He claimed his party blocked the move, which he said was worth £8bn.
But Mr Osborne said the claims were three years old, and never policy.

In other election news, with a week to go before polling day:

• David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are preparing for the BBC's Question Time Election Leaders Special, where they will face questions separately from a studio audience
• In separate programmes, the UKIP, Plaid Cymru and SNP leaders will also take questions
• The Scottish Sun has endorsed the SNP - while the London-based edition backed the Conservatives
• Ed Miliband will claim Labour activists have held four million "doorstep conversations" with voters so far in the campaign
• David Cameron will say his party would lift 500,000 young people out of tax with its pledge to raise the personal allowance

Mr Alexander, who held the post of Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the last government, has admitted leaking a document which he claims details the Conservatives' plans to cut the welfare budget.

The Tories have said they will cut welfare by £12bn if they win the next election, but the party has not explicitly set out where all the cuts will come from.

Speaking to BBC London Mr Osborne said the document Mr Alexander was using to substantiate his accusations was "three years old" and "commissioned by the chief secretary himself".

Spending review

The chancellor added: "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.

"But there is a clear choice in this election. Ed Miliband wants to put up the benefits bill and that means higher taxes for working people. David Cameron and the Conservatives will cut taxes for working people and we think savings can be made in the welfare system."

 

On BBC Two's Daily Politics, Environment Secretary Liz Truss said the Conservatives would set out plans in the first spending review of the new Parliament, if they win the 7 May election.

However, she did not rule out a future Conservative government limiting child benefit to first two children, saying instead: "We want to make work pay, we want to protect the vulnerable and the disabled and we want to protect the elderly as well."

She repeated the claim that the Conservatives would "freeze working age benefits for the next two years" saving £2bn - and said the best way to approach saving a further £10bn was by "making work pay".

The Tories believe they will hit their target of £12bn in savings to the welfare bill, because £21bn has been saved over the past five years.

But they have yet to specify where the savings will be made, and Mr Alexander said the list of measures he revealed to the Guardian "shines a light" on the scale of cuts the Tories would have to make to working-age benefits.

The Guardian said the measures were contained in a paper circulated to the four most senior cabinet members by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith in 2012.

Mr Alexander said the proposals also included removing child benefit from 16 to 19 year-olds, as well as means testing the payment.

The coalition government has already restricted child benefit - aimed at helping parents cope with the cost of bringing up children - for parents earning £50,000 a year or more.

 

Mr Alexander said: "I'm lifting the lid on this now because the Conservatives are trying to con the British people by keeping their planned cuts secret until after the election."
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Tories were either being "reckless or deceitful" in not divulging the details of how they would find £12bn of savings from the welfare budget.
"These are ideas that were put to me by Conservative ministers," Mr Alexander said, but admitted "we probably did know some of this before".
When told that the Tories had rejected the idea they were planning these cuts, he said: "In that case they know what the plan is, and they are not telling people."

'Frozen not cut'

Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg said he shared Mr Alexander's "intense frustration, verging on anger" over the issue.
He told LBC Radio: "It is wrong of the Conservatives to try and pull the wool over people's eyes... they can't even be bothered to spell out what their plans involve."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World at One on Wednesday, Conservative Chief Whip Michael Gove said working age benefits would be "frozen not cut" for two years under his party's proposals.
Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute of Financial Studies (IFS), has previously said that only £2bn of the proposed £12bn cuts had been outlined by the Conservatives so far.
In response to Mr Alexander's allegations Labour leader Ed Miliband took to Twitter and said: "The Tories have drawn up plans to take thousands of pounds from millions of families. Child benefit & tax credits are on the ballot paper."
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said: "Danny Alexander has got a bit of a cheek. He's been part and parcel of the government for the last five years that has introduced and imposed these savage cuts.
"I think people want change certainly from the Tories and I think they want a change from the Lib Dems as well."

Leaders questioned

The welfare row comes ahead of the special edition of Question Time, broadcast from Leeds Town Hall and shown live on BBC One, on the BBC website and broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live from 20:00 to 21:30 BST.

Mr Cameron will be first up, followed by Mr Miliband and then Mr Clegg. They will each appear separately to face audience questions, with David Dimbleby hosting. Each leader will be questioned for 30 minutes. The questions, which will be submitted by audience members on the night, will vary between the different leaders.

There will also be separate Ask the Leader programmes. On BBC One in Scotland, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon will take questions at 21:30 BST, and in Wales it will be the turn of Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood after the News at Ten.

At that time, viewers in England will be able to watch Nigel Farage taking questions from an audience in Birmingham. This programme will be shown later in the evening on BBC One in Wales.

The Question Time show is the final programme of four that were agreed after drawn-out negotiations between parties and broadcasters over the timing and line-up of this year's election TV debates.
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