Speaking to Jon Snow, David Cameron defends plans to cut child benefit for higher-rate tax payers, and insists that no one in his team is unsackable, including his communications chief, Andy Coulson.
Mr Cameron defended plans announced by Chancellor George Osborne yesterday to abolish child benefits for households where one parent earns over £44,000 a year.
“This is a difficult choice and there are no easy choices as we try and deal with the worst budget deficit in the G20, debts that threaten our economy and that we have to deal with.
“And I think that it’s right though to say to people who are top-rate taxpayers – I’m not saying they are rich, I’m not saying their lives are easy, they are not. But they are a lot better off than people on average earnings.
“And I think it is right to say that those top-rate, high-rate taxpayers should no longer receive child benefit.
“And that raises £1bn, and that is £1bn that we don’t have to take off the poorest families, or off the health budget or the schools budget. So I think it is the right choice, but I’m not saying it is easy. None of this is easy. We have a dreadful inheritance we have to deal with, but we have to try and deal with it in the best way we can.”
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The Prime Minister said the only alternative was to have a massive extension of means-testing, which would have been “hugely complex, very bureaucratic and would actually lead to all sorts of extra unfairness.”
“The sooner we deal with this deficit, the better able we will be to try and reduce people’s taxes, to try and lighten the burden.”
On Afghanistan, Mr Cameron said: “For too long we did not have enough helicopters in Afghanistan.
“As I understand it today, with the extra US helicopters, there are more than enough helicopters to provide support for our troops, transport, casualty evacuation and other things.
“It is important we understand this, that we are there for a reason which is to help the Afghans to secure their own country. When that is done we can come home and the sooner that is done, the happier I will be.”
The sooner we deal with this deficit, the better able we will be to try and reduce people’s taxes, to try and lighten the burden. – David Cameron
The Prime Minister denied a rift with his Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, over cuts to the MoD budget saying: “We are allies, we’re on the same side in this argument, which is we want to have a proper strategic review where we work out what are Britain’s interests in the world, what forces do we need to defend those interests and then how do we pay for them.
“And it’s a very difficult situation because – in addition to having our troops in Afghanistan…we were left with a defence budget that was £38bn overspent and carriers were ordered by a government who hadn’t even worked out which aeroplanes to put on them.”
He added: “Ministers have to fight their corners and they fight their corners with the Treasury. And obviously these are tough discussions that take place – and they are important because actually the Treasury has a job to do to make sure the departments are finding savings.”
“But in the end, the Prime Minister has to lead the team to make the decisions on the future of our country.”
He defended his under-fire Communications Director, Andy Coulson.
“No one is unsackable,” he said. “But…we haven’t had one single complaint about how he has done his job, or indeed about how the Downing Street press office has done its job. And that is quite a contrast from the years of Alistair Campbell and Damien McBride and all the rest of them.”