'Secret' Tory plans for £8bn in welfare cuts exposed by Danny Alexander

Exclusive: Lib Dem chief secretary accuses Tories of ‘trying to con the British people’ by concealing until after the election plans for major reforms to child benefits and child tax credits

Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, has taken the extraordinary step of lifting the lid on Tory plans for an £8bn plan to cut welfare, including slashing child benefits and child tax credits.

Alexander reveals 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 plans for £8bn of welfare reforms.

The proposed cuts included:

Limiting support to 2 children in child benefit and child tax credit, 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 over £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 over £1,000 for parents of a single child.

The Conservatives have been under sustained pressure to detail how they will cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-2018, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank confirmed this week the Tories have so far disclosed only 10% of these cut in the form of a two-year freeze in working age benefits.

A separate internal government paper, Alexander reveals, was drawn up by the Treasury commissioned by the Tories for an additional £6bn cuts in welfare to be announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement.

The £8bn worth of welfare cuts were drawn up by Duncan Smith at a time when the cabinet was considering whether to stick to its timetable to reduce Britain’s national debt as a proportion of GDP. The plan was dropped.

Previous hints of the cuts being considered by the Conservatives have been brushed aside by senior cabinet members, but it will be harder for the Conservative Party to refute the accusations of Alexander, a man that has sat at the centre of the government and has been in possession of the relevant documents.

Alexander’s decision to make the allegations, and challenge the chancellor George Osborne to deny the plans, is also a sign of the personal frustration Alexander feels over what he regards as Conservative evasion. The Tories have said they will only set out plans for welfare cuts after the election.

In a statement setting out his reasons for disclosing the existence and content of the documents, Alexander said: “I am 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.

“It’s clear from our time in government that the Tories target will be slashing support for families.

They now ask the British people to trust them when they make unfunded pledges on health and tax yet they won’t tell us how they will cut welfare for millions of families to pay for their plans. They may give with one hand but they will take away twice as much as with the other.”

A Liberal Democrat source added: “The measures set out in the document would have raised over £8bn – and shines a light on the scale of the cuts to working age welfare support the Tories will need to make to deliver on their cuts to welfare.

“Whilst the Tories refuse to make their cuts public it is clear they have already done the thinking If this is what they were capable of proposing in 2012, this is what they will be planning in 2015. It’s really important political leaders should be held to account on this in the last TV debate of the election. The public need the full picture to make the judgement.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/29/danny-alexander-tory-plans-welfare-cuts-child-benefits

No wonder the bastards didn't want to tell people before the election. Scheming, conniving bums.