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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Claire Phipps, Nadia Khomami and Andrew Sparrow

Iain Duncan Smith resignation: 145,000 sign petition against benefits cuts – as it happened

David Cameron said he was ‘puzzled and disappointment’ by Iain Duncan Smith’s decision to resign.

We are closing the live blog now. The main developments from today were as follows:

  • The Secretary of State for Wales, Stephen Crabb, was appointed the new work and pensions secretary. Alun Cairns MP became Secretary of State for Wales and Guto Bebb MP became a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Wales Office and a Government Whip (Junior Lord of the Treasury). (See 10.29am)
  • Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, known to be close to Duncan Smith, said proposed cuts to disability benefits in the Budget were the “last straw” for the former work and pensions secretary, and that the resignation was not about him but “young people and disabled people”. He added that Osborne’s “high-handed and short-termist political approach” had tested the patience of more than one minister. (See 9.07am).
  • Baroness Phillipa Stroud, who worked with Duncan Smith for five years and is now executive director of the Centre for Social Justice, which Duncan Smith founded, said he quit because he felt Osborne’s budget hit the poor while giving tax incentives to the middle classes. She said the resignation should be viewed as a clarion call and had nothing to do with the timing of the EU referendum. (See 9.48am).
  • Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister who now chairs the Commons work and pensions secretary, said that he had spoken to Duncan Smith a couple of times while MPs were voting in recent days and picked up no sense that he was on the point of quitting. “I think at this point Iain thinks that the social contract, which is very important between generations and at protecting the future generation, was broken,” he said. (See 10.09am).
  • Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said he was “disappointed” by Duncan Smith’s decision to quit, and that it was “a puzzle”. He claimed it was “not necessarily the case” that disabled people would lose out from the cuts to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP). (See 10.16am)
  • Commons Leader Chris Grayling said he is “surprised”, “disappointed” and “very sorry” to see Duncan Smith resign, but that he didn’t think it made any difference to the EU referendum campaign. “This is not about Europe,” he emphasised. (See 14.28pm).
  • Former Conservative leadership contender David Davis said Duncan Smith’s departure is a “tragedy” that will weaken the government. (See 15.30pm).
  • In the Labour corner, Jeremy Corbyn said Duncan Smith had “done the right thing” by resigning but that it was a wonder “where his conscience has been hiding for the past six years.” The Labour leader said the first thing Crabb has got to do is “guarantee a complete reinstatement of PIPs and reinstatement of the independent living fund, and an examination of the appalling way in which people with disabilities go through this availability-for-work tests.” (See 12.40pm).
  • John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, called for “urgent rethinking of Osborne’s failing economic policy”. He said the chancellor’s cuts “are a needless attempt to meet his own nonsensical fiscal rules.” (See 11.56am).
  • And more than 145,000 people have signed an emergency 38 Degrees petition in the last 24 hours calling for PIP cuts to be cancelled. (See 13.13pm).

That’s all from me, but you can continue to leave your comments below the line. Thanks for reading.

Updated

David Davis says Duncan Smith departure is a 'tragedy'

Conservative MP David Davis has said Duncan Smith’s departure is a “tragedy” that will weaken the government.

Davis, once a Conservative leadership contender, said the disagreements between Osborne and Duncan Smith were “long-standing” and that the pressure Duncan Smith to introduce cuts “got in the way” of reforming welfare.

“This is a big big decision for him,” he said. “It’s the end of his career doing what he wanted to do…he’s had to bring himself to do it because enough is enough.”

He said it was “clearly an unhappy outcome” for the Conservative Party, the Treasury and government, adding: “It’s not the first time – we’ve now had tax credits ... and as a result [Osborne’s] going to have to find this money somewhere else.”

An online petition calling on Stephen Crabbs to resign as patron of Mencap Pembrokeshire has been signed by more than 4000 people.

The petition is a result of Crabb’s vote to cut ESA by £30 a week.

Jim Scott, a member of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, told Buzzfeed he believed the petition he set up had become “massively more significant” in light of Crabb’s promotion.

A video of Jeremy Corbyn campaigning in Dagenham earlier today shows a crowd cheering over Duncan Smith’s resignation.

Below, listen to an audio clip of Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin saying disability cuts were the “last straw” for Iain Duncan Smith.

Wales Online’s David Williamson picks out four key reasons why Cameron may have picked Crabb for the work and pensions job. These are:

  • He is passionate about welfare
  • He is a fan of Cameron - and vice versa
  • He has convictions but he’s also a pragmatist
  • He can help rescue Cameron’s One Nation project

Cameron apparently said Crabb reminded him of Russell Crowe and suggested he would be a good choice for the next James Bond. Look out Idris Elba...

Updated

Chris Grayling says Duncan Smith resignation 'not about Europe'

Commons Leader Chris Grayling has told the BBC he is “surprised”, “disappointed” and “very sorry” to see Duncan Smith resign. “He’ll be much missed in cabinet, he’s done some really good work on welfare reform over the years”, he said.

Asked if Duncan Smith’s resignation was really about Europe, Grayling, who is also campaigning for a Brexit, said:

I don’t think this makes any difference at all to the referendum campaign. This is not about Europe.

Ladbrokes’ odds on the next leader of the Conservative Party are as follows:

Updated

Further fallout is expected throughout the weekend as Iain Duncan Smith is scheduled to appear on the Andrew Marr show tomorrow.

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett has said it is too late for Duncan Smith “to paint himself as a champion of the disabled”, adding that it is successive governments that are to blame for young people having to pay for bankers’ failures.

Iain Duncan Smith correctly observed in his resignation letter that the government’s fiscal approach is increasingly regarded as an ideological-driven dead end even in the Tory Party, but it is far too late for this former Tory leader to paint himself as a champion of the disabled when he has presided for so long over a welfare regime that has left disabled and ill people in dire poverty and desperate fear.

Iain Duncan Smith is right to identify the way in which young people have been made to pay for the greed and fraud of the bankers, but he is wrong to blame a whole generation of their elders.

Britain’s state pension is among the lowest in Western Europe, 16% of pensioners live in poverty. The problem lies with the decisions of successive governments to allow rich individuals to accumulate a larger share of the nation’s wealth, while multinational companies have become parasites failing to pay their way with taxes or decent wages and benefitting from wholesale privatisation of public assets.

Updated

In a sign of growing public opposition to cuts to disability benefits, more than 145,000 people have signed an emergency 38 Degrees petition in the last 24 hours calling for PIP cuts to be cancelled. Adam McNicholas, media campaigns manager at 38 Degrees, said prolonging uncertainty over cuts was “cruel and unjust”.

The political circus surrounding the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith should not overshadow the reality facing people who rely on this critical safety net.

This policy hasn’t yet been killed off - so the ongoing uncertainty for people who need Personal Independence Payment goes on.

The British people have called for compassion - they’ve said it’s not good enough for the government to make excuses and kick this issue into the long grass. Prolonging the uncertainty is cruel and unjust. It’s time to bin this policy and this should be the first decision of the incoming secretary of state.

This petition shows the huge outpouring of public opposition to these cuts in support for people living with disabilities.

There appears to be some speculation as to whether Duncan Smith has found the inspiration to pen another novel. Thoughts for titles?

Updated

Here is a brief breakdown of the life and career of Stephen Crabb who, according to reports, had as recently as last year discussed with friends the possibility of running for prime minister at the 2020 general election:

Crabb, 43, was born in Scotland but raised in a council house in Pembrokeshire, where his mother brought him up after she left his violent father. He went to state schools in Wales and Scotland before studying at Bristol University and London Business School.

Crabb was a youth worker and marketing consultant, working in communications and policy roles at the London Chamber of Commerce and the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services.

He was elected in his home constituency of Preseli Pembrokeshire in 2005. As a backbencher, he served on the Welsh Affairs, International Development and Treasury Select committees and, after the 2010 election, became a whip before being appointed a junior Wales minister in 2012.

Two years later he was promoted to secretary of state for Wales and in 2015 led the Tories’ Welsh campaign, securing its best result for more than 30 years.

With a strong interest in international development, for two years he led Project Umubano, the Conservative Party’s social action project in Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

The Press Association reports that outside of work, the married father-of-two is a big rugby fan and vice captain of the Commons and Lords RFC team.

He is also a practising Christian and the patron of a Welsh disability group, Pembrokeshire Mencap. He has run the London marathon three times and enjoys mountain biking, tennis and playing the guitar.

Crabb’s voting history can be viewed here. Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh has this to add:

Updated

Corbyn says 'the problem is the chancellor of the exchequer'

Jeremy Corbyn was on Sky News earlier, where he said Iain Duncan Smith has “done the right thing” by resigning but that it was a wonder “where his conscience has been hiding for the past six years.” The Labour leader also said the real problem was George Osborne, whose resignation he has called for since last night.

I think [Duncan Smith] has done the right thing to resign, because after all this is a man who has presided over some fairly appalling policies but this latest example of cutting the Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) of a very large number of people ... is shocking.

He has resigned but I really think the problem is the chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne.

Corbyn described the cuts to disability payments as “shameful” and vowed to raise the issue in parliament next week.

We have got to defend the principle of Personal Independence Payments at at least the current level and not enable them to take it away from a large number of people...

The first thing Stephen Crabb has got to do is guarantee a complete reinstatement of PIPs and reinstatement of the independent living fund, and an examination of the appalling way in which people with disabilities go through this availability-for-work tests.

The Labour MP Diane Abbott has posted a tweet suggesting that Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation is a Labour “scalp”.

The journalist Paul Mason is making much the same claim in this article, retweeted by the JeremyCorbyn4PM account.

In truth, just because Labour has been attacking the Personal Independence Payments cuts, that does not mean the party triggered Duncan Smith’s resignation. Tory backbenchers were opposing them too and, in Conservative party circles, their voices were more influential. On this, Duncan Smith and George Osborne were more worried about Andrew Percy than Jeremy Corbyn.

I’m now handing back to my colleague Nadia Khomami who is taking over the blog again.

Updated

There has been quite a bit of comment this morning about how Stephen Crabb now merits serious consideration as a potential next Conservative leader. Here are some tweets on this.

From Sky’s Sophy Ridge

From the former Conservative minister Steve Norris

Norris is commenting on this tweet from PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield.

From ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman

From the Independent’s Amol Rajan

From the academic Glen O’Hara

The Intergenerational Foundation, which campaigns on the issue of intergenerational fairness, has welcomed Iain Duncan Smith’s recognition in his resignation letter that wealthy pensioners are getting unduly favourable treatment from the government. This is from the IF’s co-founder Angus Hanton.

IF welcomes the explicit admission by the senior welfare minister that government policy has been unfair on younger generations. This drives a stake into the heart of the chancellor’s claim that this week’s budget was a “budget for the next generation”.

The OBR forecasts that the triple lock will cause pension spending to overtake all other welfare spending combined, while benefits to younger people are being slashed. We have created a “packhorse generation” of young people who are struggling under the burdens of £9,000-a-year tuition fees, sky-high housing costs and paying for the pensions and benefits of the older generation.

IDS championed the triple lock on pensions and supported universal benefits for older people - and even the pre-election granny bonds - but he has now realised the consequences for younger people of these intergenerationally regressive policies. Resigning is an understandable response to this realisation.

McDonnell calls for 'urgent rethinking of Osborne's failing economic policy'

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has put out a statement calling for a rethink of George Osborne’s entire economic strategy. He said:

Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation must now provoke an urgent rethinking of George Osborne’s failing economic policy.

The cuts that George Osborne is inflicting on some of the most vulnerable in our society are not only cruel but unnecessary. As the former secretary of state alluded to in his resignation letter, these cuts are a needless attempt by this chancellor to meet his own nonsensical fiscal rules.

To take up to £150 a week from disabled people is a chilling example of the lengths George Osborne is willing to go to in placing his own political career and fiscal rules ahead of the long term good of our nation.

Labour have offered to work with the government to revise their failed approach and instead ensure we have a fiscal policy that is fair, sustainable and shares the wealth more equally within our society.

Labour’s fiscal credibility rule, developed in consultation with world leading economists offers a framework through which we can eliminate the deficit fairly, avoiding the counter-productive, needless and cruel cuts we have seen under this government.

According to the Daily Mail’s Isabel Oakeshott, it was a story on the Press Association wires last night that persuaded Iain Duncan Smith to resign.

This seems to be a reference to this story, which was on the PA wire at 8.05pm last night.

George Osborne has signalled an embarrassing retreat over cuts to disabled benefits in the face of a major revolt by Tory MPs.

The chancellor responded to another wave of criticism over plans to curb Personal Independence Payments (PIP) by insisting the government would consult charities “to make sure we get this right”.

A government source later indicated that ministers wanted to kick the changes - initially announced by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith - into the “long grass”.

“This is going to be kicked into the long grass. We need to take time and get reforms right, and that will mean looking again at these proposals,” the source said.

“It is not an integral part of the budget - it is a DWP package that came out beforehand.”

The source said the government was not “wedded” to figures in the budget that suggested the shake-up of assessment criteria would shave around 1.3 billion a year off the PIP bill.

“We are not wedded to specific sums - it is about making sure that what will be an increasing amount of money goes to those who need it most,” they added.

Tory MP condemns Duncan Smith's 'evangelical, aggressive and routinely failing welfare reforms'

The Conservative MP Stephen McPartland has written a blistering blog saying that the Department for Work and Pensions will be well rid of Iain Duncan Smith.

Here’s an excerpt.

I was furious over tax credits and successfully fought to have it reversed. This was followed by the abolishment of ESA WRAG for new claimants in 2017, which I also voted against and fought. Then the PIP announcements were just shocking, but not simply for financial reasons, as spending is actually going up year on year in real terms. They were shocking because once again we were being asked to support a policy without any idea of what the reforms would be. What would be the additional support offered to disabled people. These reforms are contained in a Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) White Paper, which we have been unable to access. To pressure the DWP, I was going to publish my own green paper - a prequel if you like, alongside concerned colleagues.

The failure of the Back to Work programme for those on ESA WRAG, only 1 in 100 were able to get a job, was our failure not the failure of the disabled jobseekers on it. The changes announced to PIP are because we failed again. It is the proud duty of the Conservative party to help those who fall on hard times and protect the most vulnerable in society. I am sorry, but I will not be shedding any tears for the evangelical, aggressive and routinely failing welfare reforms that were the personal fiefdom of the Secretary of State for DWP.

I don’t always see eye to eye with the Treasury, but it is disingenuous to blame them, when the problem was always in my experience at the very heart of the DWP.

Five things we've learnt from the appointment of Stephen Crabb as work and pensions secretary

Stephen Crabb has today moved from what is virtually the least powerful department in government, the Wales Office, to one where he will be in charge of almost one third of government spending (the Department for Work and Pensions). It is a very significant appointment, but it involves someone who is largely unknown outside Westminster.

What does it tell us? Here are five things.

1 - Cameron is keen to reassert his credentials as a One Nation prime minister committed to compassionate Conservative. In political terms, what is particularly damaging about Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation is that it undermines Cameron’s claim to lead a government where “we’re all in it together”. In his resignation letter Duncan Smith complained about benefits for the disabled being cut while the rich are getting a tax cut. He is also concerned about the elderly being protected, while the young are being penalised. Cameron knows that these distributional concerns have much greater force if people think the government is run by privileged Etonians like himself. Crabb is an antidote to this because he was brought up in a council home by a single mum who had to flee a violent partner. He described his upbringing in this interview with the Mail on Sunday. Here’s an excerpt.

He was bullied at school because his mother couldn’t afford a uniform. And he played truant to go potato-picking to raise the cash to buy a pair of trainers. ‘One of my earliest memories is of getting between my mother and father as he came at her with a knife – terrifying,’ says Crabb, talking to me in his Westminster office.

‘There were other incidents when the police came around. My mother was basically living inside a prison suffering massive physical and emotional abuse. She literally scooped us up in her arms, we got on a train and went to Scotland.’

Interestingly, Crabb is close to Ruth Davidson, the popular, gay Conservative leader in Scotland who is another leading figure in the “Tories aren’t all have toffs and can be normal human beings” movement. She describes him as a “political soulmate”.

2 - Cameron wants welfare reform to continue - but more tactfully. Crabb is committed to the welfare-to-work agenda but, because of his personal background, he can make the case for it with much more credibility than many of his Tory colleagues. He spoke about this in a recent interview with the Spectator.

Like David Davis, who was also brought up by a single mother on a council estate, Crabb thought his way into the Conservative party. His mum left his violent father when he was just eight years old, and had to start from scratch. ‘The most powerful thing to me, looking back, is the way that my mother went through a crisis in her life and became welfare dependent,’ he says. Her recovery was gradual. ‘She started working just a few hours each week, increasing her hours and then moving to a position where with extra training she was able to move into full-time work, become a car owner, and reach full economic independence.’ This is, he says, ‘absolutely the model of how the welfare system should work’

3- Cameron does not want to inflame factionalism in the cabinet. Last night there was speculation that the Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock, a protege of George Osborne would get the job. That would have angered those Tories who think a) that Osborne’s allies get too many good jobs anyway and b) that Osborne is largely to blame for this mess himself. Crabb is not seen as part of the Osborne circle, and it is hard to imagine anyone in the party objecting to his promotion

4 - Pro-Europeans are being promoted. Crabb has been positive about making the case for Britain staying in the EU. That will not have been the main reason for his promotion, but it may have been a factor. Certainly, Cameron has not tried to maintain the Remain/Leave balance in his cabinet by replacing Duncan Smith with a fellow Brexiter.

And finally ...

5 - Beards are making a comeback. Under Margaret Thatcher possessing facial hair was said to be virtually a career-ending move for a Conservative minister. Now Crabb will become the most senior Conservative minister with a beard since - well, for quite a long time. Perhaps it’s the Jeremy Corbyn effect ...

Updated

Here’s some reaction to the appointment of Crabb. The Scottish Conservative party leader, Ruth Davidson, is a friend and ally:

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is not:

And there has been some excitable speculation this morning about Crabb’s prospects:

The Guardian’s political editor, Anushka Asthana, tweets that Crabb was the first member of Cameron’s cabinet to have a beard.

Stephen Crabb arrives in Downing Street for a cabinet meeting.
Stephen Crabb arrives in Downing Street for a cabinet meeting. Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

All three Conservatives who have been promoted today - Stephen Crabb, Alun Cairns and Guto Bebb - are voting for Britain to remain the EU.

No 10 reshuffle announcement in full

Here is the full announcement from Number 10 about the mini-reshuffle.

The Queen has been pleased to approve the following ministerial appointments:

Rt Hon Stephen Crabb MP to become Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Alun Cairns MP to become Secretary of State for Wales.

Guto Bebb MP to become a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State* at the Wales Office and a Government Whip (Junior Lord of the Treasury) .

This follows the resignation from Government of the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP.

Notes to editors:

Rt Hon Stephen Crabb MP was previously Secretary of State for Wales.

Alun Cairns MP was previously a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Wales Office and a Government Whip (Junior Lord of the Treasury).

The notes also say the asterix means Bebb will not be paid as a junior Welsh Office minister. (That’s because by law there is a limit on the number of MPs who can take paid ministerial jobs in government.)

Stephen Crabb appointed new work and pensions secretary

The secretary of state for Wales, Stephen Crabb, has been appointed the new work and pensions secretary, David Cameron has announced.

Fallon says new work and pensions secretary will be appointed today

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, was also on the Today programme giving the Number 10 line on Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation. Here are the key points he made.

  • Fallon said a new work and pensions secretary would be appointed today.
  • He said he was “disappointed” by Duncan Smith’s decision to quit, and that it was “a puzzle”. Using language very similar to David Cameron’s in Cameron’s reply to Duncan Smith’s resignation letter, Fallon said:

I am disappointed. Iain Duncan Smith has been a big part of our reforms since he took on the job six years ago ...

The decision was taken yesterday that more time was needed to get these proposals, which came from his department, to get them into better shape.

So it is a bit of a puzzle as to why he has chosen to go now but you must ask him that.

  • Fallon claimed it was “not necessarily the case” that disabled people would lose out from the cuts to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP). He said:

On disability benefits, the budget has been increasing, spending has been going up every year. These were a set of proposals designed to ensure that we were spending most of it on the people who really needed it most.

Duncan Smith resigned partly because he thought cuts unfair on the young, says Field

Hi. It’s Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Nadia.

Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister who now chairs the Commons work and pensions secretary, was also on the Today programme talking about Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation. He said that he had spoken to Duncan Smith a couple of times while MPs were voting in recent days and picked up no sense that he was on the point of quitting. He said he agreed with Phillipa Stroud (see 9.48am) about long-term factors being part of the explanation.

Duncan Smith resigned in part because he was unhappy about pensioners being protected while benefits for others are being slashed, Field said.

I do think behind this is a much bigger drama of which Iain was the driver, in that while he, with Phillipa, thought of what they wanted to do, and that was in a sense borne in the universal credit, what he also crucially cared about was the balance of resources going to families – children, younger people and older people.

And because his department had the largest of all government budgets, that chancellor decided that it would bear the most of the cuts, but the crucial thing was the pensioner element of that very large budget was actually safeguarded, in fact increased. Therefore all these cuts were on people of working age. And I think at this point Iain thinks that the social contract, which is very important between generations and at protecting the future generation, was broken.

Field has a keen interest in this issue. His committee recently launched an inquiry into intergenerational fairness.

Frank Field
Frank Field Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Phillipa Stroud: Duncan Smith's resignation is 'clarion call'

Baroness Phillipa Stroud, who worked with Iain Duncan Smith for five years and is now executive director of the Centre for Social Justice, which Duncan Smith founded, said he quit because he felt Osborne’s budget hit the poor while giving tax incentives to the middle clases. She told Today:

There are always judgement calls to be made in government, but I think at this point in time he felt that the balance of this particular package was not right, that it was not appropriate to be giving away tax incentives to the middle classes, freezing fuel duty and protecting universal benefits and pensioner benefits at the time at which you’re also making cuts to disability benefits.

She indicated that Duncan Smith would have preferred to have found the savings from better-off pensioners, and that despite Downing Street having kicked the disability cuts “into the long grass”, they would still have to be made.

The other thing that you have to be aware of is the way the Treasury score these savings, £1.3bn is still sitting on the DWP’s balance sheet, and unless Iain was going to be able to go for further savings from pensioners and universal benefits, they would be coming back for more from the same benefits – the ESA, disability benefits, JSA – all of these for vulnerable people.

Stroud said Cameron should sit up and take notice: “This resignation should be viewed really as a clarion call, a call to the government, a social justice call to align their spending investment with their social reform narrative”.

She added that she didn’t believe the timing of EU referendum had anything to do with the resignation, as “Iain in the last few weeks has not looked like a constrained man”.

Updated

Disability cuts the 'last straw' for IDS

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, known to be close to Duncan Smith was on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning to discuss the resignation.

He said Duncan Smith had “devoted his life to making the Conservative Party a party for social justice”, and that the minister’s six years as work and pensions secretary had found him in a “constant battle” with the Treasury, which had “generally taken a very short-term view on welfare reform”.

Jenkin said proposed cuts to disability benefits in the Budget were the “last straw” for Duncan Smith and that the resignation is not about him but “young people and disabled people”. Here are some of his quotes in full:

I think the period of six years doing this job has been a constant battle with the Treasury who have generally taken a very short term view of welfare reform, generally always sought to cheesepare the welfare budget in advance of every autumn statement and every budget, not interested in the long term benefits of reforming welfare to get people back to work, actually rather derogatory of Iain’s plans, and I’m afraid I think what’s happened over this budget has been the last straw.

The one thing about Iain is he is an extremely committed and principled person and I think the present Conservative regime have found that rather difficult to deal with. George Osborne’s budgets, as Iain points out in his letter, always tended to be very political, very tactical, very clever, protecting pensioners to the nth degree, to the point where we keep their fuel allowances and their free bus passes, however much it costs, but we carry on bashing young people and disabled people. This isn’t about Iain Duncan Smith it’s about young people and disabled people.

Asked to what extent the message that “we are not in this together” will resonate, Jenkin responded:

A lot of colleagues will be extremely annoyed at this explosion but they will not be surprised, we’ve been led up the hill and down the hill by the chancellor of the exchequer, we were told they were going to reform tax credits, some of us warned him quite quickly that this was really a step too far, and then suddenly he had tonnes of money in the autumn statement and everything was fine and dandy, and now he’s run out of money again.

I think people are getting a little impatient with the chancellor’s gyrations. The government is briefing against IDS now, that he was not able to stick to his own spending limits, but what about the chancellor’s own forecasts? They’ve gyrated around far larger figures. The high-handed and short-termist political approach the Chancellor has tended to take to the management of other departmental budgets has tested the patience of more than one minister.

The resignation of Iain Duncan Smith from the government electrified Westminster on Friday night and the fallout continues this morning. Downing Street is scrambling to replace him, and patch up the damage. We will be covering developments live today.

Here are the main developments:

I am unable to watch passively while certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest.

Too often my team and I have been pressured in the immediate run up to a budget or fiscal event to deliver yet more reductions to the working-age benefit bill …

I hope as the government goes forward you can look again … at the balance of the cuts you have insisted upon and wonder if enough has been done to ensure ‘we are all in this together’.

  • In a reply notable for its lack of warmth, David Cameron said he was “puzzled and disappointed” by Duncan Smith’s decision, pointing out that they had worked together on the changes to disability benefits:

That is why we collectively agreed – you, No 10 and the Treasury – proposals which you and your department then announced a week ago. Today we agreed not to proceed with the policies in their current form and instead to work together to get these policies right over the coming months.

In the light of this, I am puzzled and disappointed that you have chosen to resign.

  • The resignation came as news emerged that proposed reductions in PIP payments to disabled people – which the chancellor had said would save £4.4bn over the course of this parliament – would not go ahead in their current form.
  • There was speculation that the unexpected move by Duncan Smith – a prominent Brexit supporter – had more to do with the government’s internal divisions over the coming EU referendum than with genuine discord over cuts to disability benefits. But others pointed to longstanding tensions between the Treasury and the DWP over how and how fast such cuts should be implemented.
  • No successor at the DWP has yet been announced but Andrew Sparrow (who’ll be along to steer the live blog later on) suggests some runners and riders here.

We’ll have all the developments today here on the live blog.

Updated

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