Iain Duncan Smith was ‘isolated’ in government over welfare

CONSERVATIVE Party infighting dramatically escalated last night in the wake of Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation as he delivered a stinging attack on the direction of the party leadership’s austerity drive.

The former Work and Pensions Secretary said he felt “isolated” and “depressed” over Chancellor George Osborne’s “arbitrary” cap on welfare spending and obsession with “short-term savings”.

Energy Secretary Amber Rudd immediately hit back at what she said was Mr Duncan Smith’s “high moral tone” and dismissed the one-time Tory Party leader’s critique as “completely wrong”.

Meanwhile, ministers at Mr Duncan Smith’s former department clashed openly after pensions minister Baroness Altmann accused the senior eurosceptic of seeking to cause “maximum damage” and timing his resignation so as to help the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union in the referendum on 23 June.

Mr Duncan Smith said it was “painful” to resign but stated that Conservative policy on welfare was at risk of “dividing society”.

He said the government was abandoning its “one nation” approach and there was “massive pressure” to finalise deep cuts in the Budget to Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which are designed to help with the extra costs caused by long-term ill-health or disability.

Mr Duncan Smith said he finally chose to go on Friday night after finding out that Mr Osborne had “juxtaposed” the £1.3 billion a year PIP curbs with tax cuts for the better off.

He also confirmed he considered resigning a year ago after a series of spats with the Chancellor over cuts to tax credits and his flagship Universal Credit project, which is merging working age benefits and aims to ensure people are always better off in work.

Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show yesterday: “This has been a long-running problem when I have felt really semi-detached in a sense, isolated more often in these debates because I am not able to convince people that what we were losing progressively … was the narrative that the Conservative Party was this one nation party caring about those who don’t even necessarily vote for it, who may never vote for it.”

He flatly denied that his decision had anything to do with personal animosity to other ministers or his desire for Britain to leave the EU, telling Tory colleagues: “Don’t doubt my motive on this.”

Mr Duncan Smith said he became “progressively more and more depressed” about the Treasury’s insistence on an “arbitrary Budget agenda which has a welfare cap in it”.

Too often policies were driven by “demands for short-term savings all the time when things don’t go right with the forecast”, he said.

“My point really was we shouldn’t be debating [welfare cuts] in the context of just being above a welfare cap, which was an arbitrary position,” he said. “We should be discussing it in terms of how could we get the best aid to the people who most need it and then work from there as to how those changes came.”

He added: “I sat silently in the morning of the Budget presentation because I then realised the full state of what was actually happening with regard to both the tax cuts and the juxtaposing [of PIP cuts and tax cuts] in the Budget.”

Mr Duncan Smith said he had not been present at the Budget speech on Wednesday as he was attending a funeral. “It gave me time to think about this,” he added.

Energy secretary Ms Rudd said that Mr Duncan Smith’s behaviour was “really disappointing”. She said: “I do resent his high moral tone on that when the rest of us are absolutely committed to a one nation government. I do find his manner and his approach really disappointing.”

Pensions minister Lady Altmann accused her former boss of “shocking” behaviour.

She said: “I simply cannot understand why he suddenly chose to quit like this when it was clear that Number 10 and the Treasury had told him they were going to pause and rethink these measures.

“I’m particularly saddened that this really seems to be about the European referendum campaign rather than about DWP policy.”

But Conservative colleagues Priti Patel, Justin Tomlinson and Shailesh Vara lined up to hit back at Lady Altmann.

Employment minister Ms Patel said Mr Duncan Smith’s departure was “not about Europe”.

She said: “With respect to Ros … what I would like to say is that working with Iain he has always provided support and encouragement in all that we have done as a ministerial team.”

Conservative backbencher Heidi Allen questioned whether Mr Osborne should continue as Chancellor.

She said: “It depends how he responds to that challenge. I’m hoping so, but we’ll see in the weeks and months ahead.”

Downing Street yesterday pledged to “stick to our plan” after Mr Duncan Smith’s comments. A Number 10 spokesman said the Prime Minister was “sorry” the Work and Pensions Secretary had resigned.

But he insisted the welfare spending cap, curbing the benefits bill, and protection for pensioners had all been in the Conservative manifesto at the general election last year.

The spokesman said: “We are sorry to see Iain Duncan Smith go, but we are a one nation government determined to continue helping everyone in our society have more security and opportunity, including the most disadvantaged.

“That means we will deliver our manifesto commitments to make the welfare system fairer, cut taxes and ensure we have a stable economy by controlling welfare spending and living within our means.”

The spokesman said there were now “two million more people with the security of a job and a pay packet, almost half a million fewer children growing up in a home where nobody works and over a million fewer people trapped on out-of-work benefits”.