DAVID Cameron has failed to close down a row over whether or not a future Conservative government would reduce child benefit despite suggesting there would be no reductions in the state handout, if he won power next week.
Following his failure to be categoric about future Tory plans during the BBC Question Time leaders' cross-examination, which caused Ed Miliband to insist the issue remained on the ballot paper, the Prime Minister sought to end the continuing row.
Stressing how finding savings in the £200 billion-plus annual welfare bill were needed to protect the NHS and other key budgets, Mr Cameron - using the present tense - said: "Let me be absolutely clear; we are not cutting child benefit, we are keeping child benefit."
Noting how he had already announced plans to continue freezing child benefit for two more years, he stressed: "But it is an absolutely crucial benefit and, with me as Prime Minister, it stays."
Pressed on whether that meant there would be no changes to the higher rate of benefit for the first-born child or means-testing, the Tory leader replied: "We had those proposals put to us, we rejected them; they are not right. We keep child benefit, we don't cut child benefit."
The row erupted on Wednesday when Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, leaked so-called Tory plans that were circulated to the four most senior Cabinet ministers in a paper three years ago. Proposals floated also included removing child benefit from 16 to 19-year-olds as well as means-testing the payment.
But while the Tory leadership insisted it had rejected the "set" of proposals, fears persisted, particularly after Mr Cameron on the BBC programme repeatedly refused to rule cuts out categorically.
But yesterday he told ITV News: "We are not cutting child benefit, we are keeping child benefit...It is an absolutely crucial benefit and with me as prime minister, it stays."
However, his critics insist this still gives Mr Cameron wriggle room to make some changes that could affect payments. Labour appears adamant to keep up the attacks.
After a campaign speech in south-west England, Mr Miliband tweeted a picture of himself, saying: "I've just finished speaking to people in Bristol about our commitment to protect child benefit and the Tories' plan to cut it."
Ed Balls also waded in, saying: "After days of weasel words and prevarication David Cameron is still failing to rule out cutting child benefit and tax credits again. All he has said again is he won't abolish child benefit but he won't deny he plans to cut it or take it away from millions of families. Everyone knows it's impossible for the Tories to achieve their £12bn of cuts to social security without hitting family budgets hard."
The Shadow Chancellor added: "Child benefit and tax credits are now on the ballot paper next week. While Labour will protect them, the whole country now knows the Tories will cut them again."
Earlier this week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said of the Tories' planned £12bn welfare cuts: "It is hard to see how such savings could be achieved without sharp reductions in the generosity of, or eligibility to, one or more of child benefit, disability benefits, housing benefit and tax credits."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article