My Lords, I spent three months every year debating with the Treasury the proposals that it put forward to cut my budget. One counterargument I never used was that the specific cost-cutting measure was not in the party’s manifesto. Frankly, I had quite enough trouble getting the Treasury to recognise the measures that were in the manifesto. Every Government introduce measures not contained in the manifesto. The last thing I did was to introduce the dock labour scheme—there was not a word about that in the manifesto. Back in my old social security days, Barbara Castle, under pressure from the Treasury, altered the whole basis of measuring inflation at a cost and a saving of well over £1 billion.
The truth about reduction in benefit spending is that it is always going to be unpopular. I found that in Cabinet everyone was in favour of doing it in general but when it came to the specifics they always said, “Please, not that way”. Frankly, I think that the Conservative manifesto in 2015 spelled out what was intended with more clarity in this area than any manifesto I can remember on either side. The Government said in words that they would have to find £12 billion from welfare savings. That is a good deal more specific than any manifesto I had anything to do with myself and, indeed, any manifesto which ever came up on the other side.