'Disappointed and puzzled' David Cameron LASHES OUT at Iain Duncan Smith resignation
DAVID Cameron said he is “puzzled and confused” by Iain Duncan Smith’s decision to resign from the Cabinet over concerns about cuts to disability benefits.
David Cameron blasted Iain Duncan Smith
The Prime Minister claimed the former Secretary for Work and Pensions “agreed” with him and chancellor George Osborne before the benefit cuts were announced earlier this week.
Mr Duncan Smith had agreed on the controversial Personal Independent Payment policy “to support the vulnerable and to give disabled people more independence”, he added.
He also claimed the former Tory leader had agreed “work together to get these policies right over the coming months".
Mr Cameron said he is puzzled and confused” by Iain Duncan Smith’s decision
The explosive claims comes after Mr Duncan Smith caused shockwaves through the Conservative party by quitting the Cabinet.
In a fiery letter of resignation, the minister said that plans to cut the benefits paid to the disabled by more than £1 billion were a "compromise too far".
Welfare for pensioners should be cut instead, he said.
The planned cuts to Personal Independence Payments are expected to affect 640,000 people.
David Cameron claimed the former Tory leader had agreed “work together to get these policies right
Mr Duncan Smith said the cuts were "not defensible" within a Budget that "benefits higher earning taxpayers".
He said he is proud of reforms made over the last five years, but that the latest cuts were a "compromise too far".
He wrote: "I am unable to watch passively whilst 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.
Mr Duncan Smith said the cuts to disability benefit were "not defensible"
"I have for some time and rather reluctantly come to believe that the latest changes to benefits to the disabled and the context in which they’ve been made are a compromise too far.
"While they are defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers.
"They should have instead been part of a wider process to engage others in finding the best way to better focus resources on those most in need."