DUP lay out demands for coalition – including scrapping the Bedroom Tax

The DUP’s Nigel Dodds has again suggested that his party could work with Labour in a future hung parliament. In an article for The Guardian, Dodds sets out the most important policy areas for the DUP, and what they would demand in exchange for supporting a larger party. Last month, Dodds said that he could work with Ed Miliband.

The DUP deputy leader has now set out three areas that he feels are the most important.

Defence

Dodds says:

“On defence, the next government has to accept that we live in a world where committing to spending 2% of GDP on it is a bare minimum.”

The Tories are currently in disarray over defence spending: Cameron pledged that, after cuts to the defence budget in this parliament, he would be committed to increasing it in real terms during the next. It now seems that he is preparing to renege on that promise, prompting uproar among service chiefs and Tory MPs – highlighted by Labour MPs Stella Creasy and Gisela Stuart at PMQs yesterday. Labour could be prepared to outflank the Tories on security.

Bedroom Tax

Dodds says:

“On social justice, we think Westminster can learn from what we did at Stormont over the bedroom tax. Despite the need – agreed across the political spectrum – to reduce public expenditure, we were determined that this failed policy should not be extended to Northern Ireland. It is time in the next parliament that the inhumane and ineffective consequences of the bedroom tax are revisited in the rest of the UK.”

Ed Miliband has already committed to abolishing the Bedroom Tax. The Tories will be a lot harder to convince.

Immigration and the EU

Dodds says he the DUP want:

“a formal, treaty-based recognition that countries like the UK that wish to should be able to better protect their borders. Free movement of labour does not have to entail free access to benefits paid for by other countries’ taxpayers.”

This is strikingly similar to Labour’s position. “Fair movement not free movement” has become a mantra for explaining what Labour’s approach to immigration within the EU would be, while Miliband has set out plans to stop people who have just moved to the country claiming benefits during their first two years of residence. Changes to immigration policies of this kind would likely need a renegotiation treaty, although a new treaty is something Labour are keen to avoid. The Conservatives, however, are in favour of a renegotiation followed by a referendum.

UPDATE: Dodds this evening adds that to work with Labour, an EU referendum would have to be offered.