John McDonnell urges conservative MPs to rebel over 'new low' in disability cuts

Meanwhile, opposition MPs suggested that Conservatives are beginning to have reservations over the £1.3 billion of cuts.

Opening the second day of debate on Mr Osborne's Budget, Mr McDonnell said: "We know that so far on the Chancellor's watch, people with severe disabilities were hit 19 times harder than those without disabilities.

"And if that was not enough, the Government is now taking over £100 a week out of the pockets of disabled people.

"Even for a Chancellor who has repeatedly cut public spending on the backs of those least likely or least able to fight back, this represents a new low.

"I believe it's morally reprehensible."

He added: "I'm appealing to the Chancellor today to think again.

"We will support you to reverse the cuts in personal independence payments for disabled people and I say to him, if he can fund capital gains tax giveaways for the richest 5%, he can find the money to reverse this cruel and unnecessary cut."

Intervening, Labour's Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) highlighted the decision of Tory campaigner Graeme Ellis to close down the Conservative Disability Group website in protest at the cuts.

Replying, Mr McDonnell issued his call for Tory MPs to join Labour in urging the Chancellor to reverse the "dangerous" cuts.

He said: "Can I just say this across the House? This is a very important issue and we will not make party politics of this.

"I say this sincerely, as someone who has campaigned on disability issues in this House for 18 years.

"I urge all members now to press the Chancellor to think again on this issue - it is cruel and it is unfortunately I believe dangerous for the well-being of disabled people."

Meanwhile, Labour's Rachael Maskell suggested Tory members "cannot stand it any more".

She said: "Isn't it not just women who have borne the brunt but also disabled people, where half a million disabled people are losing between them a billion pounds?

"Not even members of the Conservative Party can stand this any more."

And earlier, in a separate Commons debate, SNP frontbench spokesman Pete Wishart said Tories were beginning to question the redistributive aspects of the Budget.

He said: "I think we've also got to commend some of the Conservative disabled activists who have made their voices heard over the course of the last 24 hours, particularly with that website.

"I think even Conservative members are recognising in this Budget, the redistribution aspect - redistribution from the poorest and the disabled to the wealthiest in our society."

Mr McDonnell attacked Mr Osborne for failing in two of his three economic tests by breaching the welfare cap and presiding over rising national debt.

He pointed out that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility had blamed Britain's poor economic performance on productivity rather than the global factors the Chancellor claims are to blame.

Mr McDonnell said: "The OBR is very clear on this point - British productivity, not global factors are the reason the Chancellor is in trouble.

"Robert Chote, the head of the OBR, confirmed in an interview last night, 'most of the downward growth revisions were not driven by global uncertainty but by weaker than thought domestic productivity'.

"And as a result of that we now see drastically reduced economic forecasts and disappointing tax revenues.

"The Chancellor has been in the job six years now, it's about time he took some responsibility for what's happened on his watch."

The shadow chancellor criticised Mr Osborne for putting his political interests ahead of the country.

He said: "His disastrous economic failures are the results of putting personal ambition ahead of sound economics.

"The Chancellor is clinging to the tattered remains of his fiscal charter, using it to justify brutal cuts to vulnerable people in our society."

He offered the Government the option of working together to "design a fiscal framework which balances the books without destroying the economy".

"If he refuses our offer of cooperation, Labour will fight every inch of the way against the counter-productive, vindictive and needless measures the Chancellor's set out in this Budget."

Labour MPs challenged the "forced academy agenda" after a recent Ofsted assessment identified weaknesses in academy schools across England.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: "It's quite extraordinary that the party opposite who started the academies programme have now moved some far away from their original position."

She said the extension of the school day and turning schools into academies will boost the life chances of children, as well as funding to expand school breakfast clubs.

She said: "We know that there is evidence, particularly form the Sutton Trust, that the longer school day is likely to be beneficial for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, participation of physical sport in particular is associated with better cognitive function, better mental health and improved concentration and behaviour in the classroom.

"It is an investment that will raise the life chances of the most disadvantaged young people who may otherwise struggle to access enriching activities."

Liz McInnes, the Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton, intervened on the Education Secretary to ask what the Government's announcement on academies will mean for the national curriculum.

Ms McInnes said: "Can the Secretary of State tell me how she envisages the future of the national curriculum given that academies do not have to follow the national curriculum and that forced academisation of schools will mean that basically it is a free for all what these schools actually teach our children?"

Ms Morgan replied: "Your question demonstrates an absolute lack of trust or belief in the professionals running our schools.

"The national curriculum will be a benchmark and if you go and talk to those running our schools you will find many of the academies, they are teaching above and beyond the national curriculum."

Conservative former cabinet minister Liam Fox, who backs a British exit from the EU, said: "The European Union, rather than providing, in my view, the great opportunity, provides two major risks to our economic stability."

He said the first is the euro, noting: "(It's) a vanity project, it's a political project dressed up as an economic one.

"The wrong countries were allowed to join the euro and when they joined they were allowed to follow fiscal policies that caused them to diverge from the original premise, and as a consequence we have millions of young Europeans facing structural, high-term unemployment sacrificed on the altar of the single currency.

"That will have a huge cost and it has an economic cost to the United Kingdom because of the budgetary mechanism by which we support the European Union - in other words, the more our economy continues to grow in relation to the European Union, the higher our contributions will get because it's a factor of our GDP.

"We in this country and our taxpayers will be penalised for our economic success and for remaining outside the project that, we said from the very outset, was doomed to failure.

"The one thing we didn't hear yesterday in the Budget was how we could otherwise be spending the £350 million a week we're currently sending to Brussels."

Free movement is the second "instability", Mr Fox added. He warned this puts pressure on housing, schools and health services.

Labour's Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) criticised Mr Osborne's "record of failure", adding: "Fiscal rules broken, cuts targeted at the most vulnerable in society and no compelling vision for our country.

"An ideological Budget for the better off that seeks to reshape the state on the back of our country's poorest.

"This from a Chancellor who quite frankly focuses too much on the politics and not enough on the economics."

He joked: "I've had goldfish which have lasted longer than some of the Chancellor's fiscal rules."

Labour's Diana Johnson (Hull North) added: "I certainly don't see this as a Robin Hood budget because he was going at hitting his targets."