George Osborne's Budget passed with £4.4bn hole still in it
MPs have backed George Osborne's Budget following a tense few days for the Conservatives that risked seeing the party torn apart.
The Commons voted 310 to 275 in support of the red book despite the Chancellor blowing a £4.4bn black hole in his financial plan by scrapping cuts to disability benefits.
Osborne refused to apologise for his U-turn on Personal Independence Payment cuts but indirectly admitted the plan had been a “mistake”.
He had been forced to row back on the plan by the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith as Work and Pensions Secretary as well as growing hostility from a range of Tory MPs.
In a direct riposte to the concerns raised in Duncan Smith's resignation letter, Osborne insisted he had produced a “One Nation, compassionate Conservative Budget”.
Opening the final day of Budget debate in the Commons yesterday, he insisted the Government had “listened” to concerns about PIP.
And he added that the Conservatives have overseen an overall rise in the money going to disabled people since 2010.
The embattled Chancellor was backed up throughout by a well-orchestrated chorus of cheers from his own side, along with a series of accommodating questions from Conservative MPs.
Labour repeatedly called on the Chancellor to say sorry for causing distress to disabled people, but he repeatedly declined to apologise.
“Where we’ve made a mistake, where we’ve got things wrong, we listen and we learn, that’s precisely what we’ve done,” he told MPs.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell followed Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham in repeatedly calling on Osborne to resign over his original proposals.
“In my view, and I believe that of many others, the behaviour of the Chancellor over the last 11 days calls into question his fitness for the office he now holds,” he said.
“The Chancellor was willing to cut away this vital support to some of the poorest and most disadvantaged members of our community. Do not tell us ‘we’re all in this together’,” he said.
Osborne confirmed he will set out how the £4.4bn gap will be filled at the Autumn Statement.