Where does the Tory vote against welfare reform leave Cameron’s couples policy?

By James Purnell

The Tories claimed they would tackle social breakdown through radical welfare reform and by rewarding marriage in the tax credit system. Now it is clear they would do neither.

David Cameron defined his “central mission” as radical social reform and in particular ending welfare dependency. Yet last week his Tories voted against Labour’s radical Welfare Reforms. What does that tell us about the Tories and where does it leave Cameron’s tax policy?

For months the Tories’ narrative has centred on welfare reform. We were left in no doubt: the Tories were serious about shaking up the benefits system. If we were in any doubt they used suitably strong language. They stigmatised people on benefits, in turn claiming they were ‘paid to sit on the sofa’, that they were ‘shameless’, even labelling them as potential Karen Matthews.

We now know they weren’t serious about welfare reform.

When the time came to vote for radical policies that would help people off benefits and into work they showed that they failed their own test. Had they won, more people would have been abandoned on benefits. Their vote last week comes at a cost to their credibility on welfare reform but the real cost to the Tories is the gaping hole it leaves in their tax credit policy.

David Cameron has rarely stood before a public audience in the last few months without trumpeting his ‘couple penalty’ tax credit policy. The view behind this policy is that people fall in and out of love for a few pounds a week and that a child only deservew to be lifted out of poverty if his or her parents are married.

While the policy might be irrational it certainly wasn’t cheap. The Tories put a price tag of £3 billion on the policy.

Originally they claimed that this policy would be paid for by getting people off incapacity benefit. But that wasn’t credible when it was pointed out that Labour was abolishing incapacity benefit and giving everyone back-to-work support. So they moved to a more general claim that they would find the £3bn, not an inconsiderable sum, from ‘welfare savings.’

With their welfare credibility dented by their vote against reform, the Tories know such a general claim that does not have any policy attached to it will not stand up to scrutiny. Informed Tory sources are quoted today in national newspapers today saying that “there won’t be any” welfare savings.

So it looks like their £3bn commitment may be put into the same dark drawer in Ken Clarke’s office as their inheritance tax policy.

Having set themselves against serious welfare reform, the Tories should now have the honesty to ditch this dishonest policy.