David Cameron is under increasing pressure to introduce tax breaks for married couples as a way of averting a Tory party split over same-sex ‘marriage’.
Ministers are pressing him to make an announcement in March implementing the party’s promise to reward married couples in the tax system.
MPs plan to use the coming weeks to warn a reluctant Chancellor, George Osborne, that he will risk losing lifelong Tories from the party unless he acts.
Under Pressure
The pressure comes as David Cameron faces the biggest potential split of his leadership, when MPs vote next week on the Government’s Bill to introduce same sex ‘marriage’.
Downing Street is hopeful that a majority of Tories will back the measure, which has put a large number of the party faithful at odds with Mr Cameron and their MPs.
Party managers are ready for nearly 150 of the party’s 303 MPs to vote against, in a free vote.
Many from the 2010 intake are sympathetic to same sex ‘marriage’ but are worried about the risk of deselection by mutinous local members and have yet to show their hand, making vote-counting difficult, according to well-placed sources.
Opposing view
Cabinet ministers expected to take the opposite side from Mr Cameron include Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Cabinet’s leading rightwinger, may yet support the Bill.
Former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth said that Mr Osborne had no choice but to deliver quickly the party’s promise on tax breaks to married couples.
“The politics is pretty straightforward - he’ll have to,” Sir Gerald said.
“What quid pro quo is there for us? Implementing a manifesto commitment should come before implementing something for which there’s no mandate, let alone public consent, and which has the added disadvantage of being deeply resented by longstanding, hard-working Conservative members who feel they are being trampled on.”
Some in Downing Street are reluctant to appear to be using married couples tax breaks to buy goodwill over any fallout from same sex ‘marriage’. They cautioned that moves were not necessarily “imminent”.
Source:
The Times (£)