ANKARA
A senior Liberal Democrat politician leaked Thursday a secret Conservative plan to cut £8 billion in child benefits in 2012.
The center-right Conservative Party and centrist Liberal Democrats Party formed a coalition in 2010 after elections in the same year ended in a hung parliament.
“It’s clear from our time in government that the Tories' (Conservative) target will be slashing support for families,” Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, said in a statement.
A Conservative Party spokesman rebuffed the accusations, saying, “This is desperate stuff from Liberal Democrats who are now willing to say anything to try and get attention.”
The proposed cuts were unveiled by Alexander in the liberal-left Guardian newspaper. They date back to an internal government document from June 2012 drawn up by Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan-Smith.
The document proposed deep cuts to child benefit and tax credits, which aim to help parents cope with the cost of bringing up children. The coalition has already tightened child benefits for those earning more than £50,000 a year.
Among the proposed cuts were: means-teasing child benefit, scrapping the higher rate for the first child, limiting support to two children and removing it for 16 to 19-year-olds.
They were due to be announced in 2012, but the proposed reforms were dropped -- apparently under Liberal Democrat pressure.
“For five years, I won battle after battle to stop the Tories veering off to the right with ideological cuts and it has been worth it to keep the economy on track while ensuring a fairer society,” Alexander said.
Conservative Chancellor George Osborne, who was effectively Alexander’s boss in the Treasury, rubbished the claims of his former coalition partner.
Commenting on the “three years old” document, Osborne told BBC London, “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 Conservatives have pledged £12 billion in cuts to welfare spending over the course of the next parliament, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies said earlier this week that the center-right party had only outlined where 10 percent of the these cuts would come from.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he felt "intense frustration, verging on anger" at Conservative recalcitrance to spell out exactly what cuts they would make.
"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," he told a London radio station.
The governing party responded by saying that as they saved £21 billion over the past five years, they could be trusted to find £12 billion in savings over the next parliament.
“The past is the best guide to the future,” senior Conservative MP Michael Gove told BBC Radio 4. “Our track record is the best way in which we can be judged."
It was this lack of transparency that motivated Alexander to leak the internal coalition document.
“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,” Alexander said.
“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,” he said. “They may give with one hand, but they will take away twice as much with the other.”
Gove clarified his party’s position on child benefit, saying, “We’re going to freeze them for two years, we are not going to cut them.”
After being informed that the Conservatives denied ever planning these cuts, Alexander said, "In that case they know what the (welfare cuts) plan is, and they are not telling people."
