Election 2015: Leaked documents reveal Tory benefit cut options – as it happened

• A range of welfare benefits are potentially facing the axe or being severely restricted by the Conservatives after the general election, according to emails seen by the BBC. The range of cuts suggested by officials include restricting child benefit so it is payable only to the first two children, and scrapping industrial injuries benefit by passing the costs to firms

• Labour leader Ed Miliband launched his party’s election campaign by vowing an incoming Labout government would impose a profits cap on private health companies in the NHS. Any company that made more than 5% from the contract would be forced to reimburse the NHS for any returns above the level of the cap.

• Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, has been accused by Simon Hughes, his Liberal Democrat ministerial colleague, of “absurd” behaviour over plans to block staff in the Ministry of Justice from paying trade union subscriptions through their pay packets.

• A Populus poll after Thursday night’s leaders’ interviews has given Labour a two-point lead over the Conservatives as electioneering begins in earnest.

That’s all from me tonight. Thanks for all your comments. Saturday’s election live blog will be a readers’ edition, so feel free to come along and discuss the morning’s political developments without a ringmaster getting in the way. Doors open at 8am.

The imperious John Crace has just launched his political sketch, heralding today’s arrival of “Confident Ed”. I repeat: John Crace’s political sketch has just launched. So read John’s political sketch here:

Ed put a hand in the air and they duly sat down. This was the new, more confident Ed. “Friends,” he said, “the Tories have said this is as good as it gets. But we know that Britain can do better than this. The Tories have said this is as good as it gets. But we know that Britain can do better than this. The Tories have said this is as good as it gets. But we know that Britain can do better than this.” The shadow cabinet was not entirely sure if he was repeating this for emphasis or his speech-writer had copied and pasted the same sentences in three times. They clapped enthusiastically anyway. Better safe than sorry.

The Guardian’s political editor Patrick Wintour has filed his take on the DWP leak, which details how options on the table include restricting child benefit to the first two children, and scrapping industrial injuries benefit.

In the story, which will be launched very shortly, Patrick writes:

A range of welfare benefits are potentially facing the axe or being severely restricted by the Conservatives after the general election, according to emails seen by the BBC.

The range of cuts suggested by officials include restricting child benefit so it is payable only to the first two children, and scrapping industrial injuries benefit by passing the costs to firms.

Emails seen by the BBC suggest if companies does not have an insurance policy they will become members of a default scheme and pay a levy to fund it. Axing the Industrial injuries compensation scheme could save £1bn.

Restricting child benefit so that none is paid for the third child and above could eventually save £1bn in the long run, but only modest amounts initially.

Other proposals aired in by Department of Work and Pensions civil servants include a regional benefits cap, taxing disability benefits and reducing eligibility for the carers’ allowance.

The Conservatives have said they want to cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-18, but have indicated they will probably not set out any details as to how they intend to do so until after election - provoking a political row.

David Cameron, when interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Channel 4 and Sky on Thursday, declined to set out any detailed thinking, referring only to a proposal to freeze working age benefits.

The Conservatives responded to the BBC leak by insisting the proposals were not party policy.

But a Conservative spokeswoman said it was not clear the proposals had reached ministerial offices, and suggested they might be part of a wide set of contingency thinking ordered by the cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood. Collectively the cuts would save around £5bn showing how ambitious it may become for Ministers to reach £12bn.

David Cameron has already discussed cutting - the maximum amount in benefits a household can receive - from the current £26,000 to £23,000. In addition he has spoken of freezing working age benefits for a year.

Labour has responded to the BBC’s story on the Tory benefit cut options, calling them “extreme” and urging the party to “come clean” on its plans.

Rachel Reeves MP, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said:

These plans to hit the disabled and carers were drawn up for Conservative ministers to deliver their extreme cuts plan. The Tories now need to come clean about what cuts they plan to make and who will pay the price. If they are ruling out these extreme cuts for the most disabled and carers, then it is clear they will be hitting the tax credits, and support for children, for millions of working families.

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Labour has a better plan to control the costs of social security, by tackling the root causes of spending in low pay and rising housing costs. We will raise the National Minimum Wage to £8 an hour, promote a living wage, and get at least 200,000 homes built a year.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 News is about to broadcast the results of an investigation into MPs expenses that reveals 46 members have claimed cash for London rent or hotels despite owning a property in the capital.

Analysis by the freelancers Guy Basnett and Paul McNamara has showed the claims have cost the taxpayer more than £1.3m since 2012.

The report identifies the shadow culture minister Chris Bryant and former health secretary Andrew Lansley as particularly large claimants. The report says:

Labour’s shadow culture minister Chris Bryant claimed expenses of £35,350 in 2012/13 and 2013/14 to rent a London flat - despite already owning a penthouse in the capital. He bought the property in 2005, claiming around £1,000 a month in mortgage claims. But when the rules changed he let it out. Estate agent brochures show the two-bed apartment with a private lift and porter has since been marketed for rent for around £3,000 a month.

Conservative MP and former health secretary Andrew Lansley jointly owns a flat in upmarket Pimlico with his wife, bought with help from mortgage claims. But since 2013 he’s claimed £7,440 to stay in London hotels. The MP for South Cambridgeshire does not let his flat out, but has instead made room for his daughter who has used the property to launch a business.

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Basnett and McNamara say their investigation raises questions about whether the new Ipsa expenses system allows taxpayers’ money to be used appropriately, and whether MPs can still gain.

The list of 46 MPs include 25 Conservatives, 14 Labour, and four from the Liberal Democrats.

The BBC says that meetings about these options have taken place in recent weeks between the chancellor and Duncan Smith, while the head of the civil service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has been coordinating some of the efforts to find savings.

The government has cut around £20bn from projected welfare spending over the course of the past five years, through a range of measures from freezing payments rates to cutting housing benefit.

But Robert Joyce, a senior economist with the IFS, says finding another £12bn over the next two years will not be easy.

“The easier benefit cuts are the ones that will have been done first, so what’s left will be harder.

“In addition, the Conservatives want to do this by 2017-18, in the next two years. It means they have to be looking at less palatable options that would involve overnight takeaways from certain families.”

Rosanna Trudgian, policy officer at the charity Mencap, said the proposed changes were unfair.

“Disabled people don’t choose to have their disability. They don’t choose to pay for these additional costs related to that disability,” she told BBC News.

“For example, if you have to go to hospital on a regular basis and you are paying for those huge car parking fees. Therefore, it’s just unfair if this is treated as taxable income.”

George Eaton, the New Statesman’s political editor, calls the options being considered “grim”.

The BBC has just published a story based on leaked documents from the Department of Work and Pensions that reveal the Conservative party is considering options for scrapping several benefits.

Though the plans are only at the ideas stage, the breadth of the options still on the table means it’s pretty explosive stuff.

The documents show the Tories are looking at introducing a regional benefits cap, taxing disability benefits and limiting eligibility for the carers’ allowance, the BBC reports.

The proposals are aimed at helping to save £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017/18, though the Conservatives insisted they are not party policy.

“This is ill informed and inaccurate speculation,” a spokeswoman for Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told the BBC. “Officials spend a lot of time generating proposals - many not commissioned by politicians.

“It’s wrong and misleading to suggest that any of this is part of our plan.”

The BBC report goes on to list the benefits under consideration for change:

• Industrial Injuries Compensation Scheme - could be replaced by companies providing industrial injury insurance policy for employees. Any that did not would become members of a default national industrial injuries scheme, similar to the programme for asbestos sufferers. DWP predicted saving - £1bn
• Carer’s Allowance - this could be restricted to those eligible for Universal Credit. Leaked documents suggest about 40% of claimants would lose out.DWP predicted saving - £1bn
• The contributory element of Employment and Support Allowance and Job Seekers Allowance - currently claimants who have paid enough National Insurance contributions can get the benefits with little means testing; DWP analysis suggests 30% of claimants, over 300,000 families, would lose about £80 per week. DWP predicted saving - £1.3bn in 2018/19
• Disability benefits - Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Attendance Allowance (for over 65s who have personal care needs) would no longer be paid tax free. Possible saving - £1.5bn per annum(based on IFS Green Budget calculation )
• Council Tax Support - to be incorporated into Universal Credit. Possible saving - not known
• Child Benefit - Limiting the benefit to the first two children. Possible saving IFS estimates £1bn saving per annum in the long run but little initially
• Regional Benefit Caps - The £23,000 limit would vary in different parts of the country, with for instance Londoners receiving the top amount due to the higher cost of living. Possible saving - not known and dependent on where levels were set

I’ll bring you reaction to this story as soon as it comes in. But revelations of plans like this – even if not official policy – will not play well with centrist voters already wary of the Tories’ deep spending cuts.

Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, is embroiled in a row over trade union dues after the leak of a letter that showed he attempted to block staff in his department from paying subscriptions through their pay packets, my colleague Nicholas Watt reports.

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In an internal letter, leaked to the Guardian, Hughes warned Grayling that removing the “check-off facility” would send a “negative signal” about the government’s standpoint on longstanding trade union rights.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said the leaked letter showed that the Tories were determined to drive trade unionism out of the public sector.

The Tories came under fire after the justice secretary announced, in an internal MoJ note, that he would remove the check-off facility that allows staff to have their trade union subscription deducted from their monthly pay cheque.

Grayling, who is obliged under the terms of the coalition agreement to consult the Lib Dems, sent out the note days before the pre-election purdah kicks in with the formal dissolution of parliament on Monday. The government is not allowed to take any big – or politically sensitive – decisions during this period.

You can read the full story here.

YouGov has revealed more detail of what floating voters thought of last night’s leaders’ interviews. And it makes interesting reading.

The panel of five men and four women from across England spoke to researchers throughout the 90-minute broadcast. The polling company’s PR manager Andrew Farmer has blogged about what the voters first impressions were.

Many of the respondents were impressed by the Labour leader – not least those who might be considered to be outside his natural constituency. Sixty-nine year-old Joe, a widower from south London, was Conservative but is leaning towards Ukip this time. He believed Ed Miliband was “quite confident”, “calm” and gave “some good responses to the questions”.

This view was echoed by Keith, a 52 year-old former Lib Dem from Oldham. He thought the Labour leader’s performance was “very relaxed and confident” and he was surprised by what he saw. “I always thought him to be evasive but tonight he is being very clear and direct in his answers.”

Mr Miliband also managed to alter his perception among erring Labour voters. Forty year-old mother-of-three Jennifer voted Labour in 2010 and was a supporter of David Miliband. However, last night’s TV encounter made her reassess her view of his Labour leader brother. During the session she thought Ed Miliband was “coming across extremely well.”

Two of the panel that were leaning Conservative remained slightly hesitant about the Tory pronouncements on the economy. Twenty year-old Alex from outer London thinks of himself as a natural Conservative but says the party’s “‘long-term economic plan’ needs to be spelled out if we buy into it.” He explained that it “has been drummed into my head so much I do like to believe it, however I want to see concrete evidence.”

The pitfalls of campaigning in the run-up to Easter …

There is something of a Twitter debate on use of the lock as a rhetorical device.

How many locks do you need, just to be on the safe side? For example, I’ve currently got just one lock on my bike - am I asking for trouble? Maybe I should get two, just to be on the safe side. But only three would make it really safe.

It’s heading the way of razorblades – soon a quadruple lock will be all the rage.

Thanks Andrew. I’ll be taking the blog through to Friday evening, pointing you in the direction of our best political content and sniffing round the stories that might be in your Saturday papers.

First up, our video team have just launched a recap of Ed Miliband’s speech from east London earlier today, in which he described this as the “tightest election for a generation”.

Leading psephologists have been holding a conference at the LSE today where they have heard presentations from teams who are trying to forecast the results of the election. Twelve individuals or teams have provided predictions. And all of them expect a hung parliament.

Here is an extract from the LSE news release.

A total of 12 forecasting teams, many of which correctly predicted that the 2010 election would be a hung parliament, agree no single party will win the 326 seats required for a majority.

Half of the forecasters predict that the Conservatives will be at least narrowly ahead, while half predict Labour will win the most seats.

On average, the twelve forecasts point to a close finish with Labour on 282 seats, and the Conservatives on 275.

All but one of the forecasters agree the Liberal Democrats will lose a substantial number of constituencies, winning a total of 25 seats, 32 fewer than in the 2010 election.

Most believe the SNP are set to make sweeping gains, on average predicting a total of 41 seats. Consequently the SNP is likely to find itself in a pivotal position when inter-party negotiations take place after the election.

Here is a quote from Stephen Fisher, associate professor in political sociology at the University of Oxford, and one of conference organisers.

While it seems clear Britain is heading for a hung parliament – and most likely one in which no party is even close to an overall majority – it is far from certain which party will emerge with most seats. Much could turn on whether a relatively small number of votes switch in one direction or the other. During the next six weeks voters genuinely have the fate of David Cameron and Ed Miliband in their hands.

And here is a chart with some of the forecasts.

One team is forecasting the Lib Dems just getting 10 seats.

On that note, I’m wrapping up for the day.

My colleague Mark Smith will be updating the blog until we close it a bit later.

Thanks for the comments.

At a party for the launch of Simon Hoggart’s last book before he died a colleague said that Simon had written “the best book on coalition politics” published in Britain. I was surprised because, although I had read a few of Simon’s books, I did not know what this was referring to. It turned out to be a book he had co-written in 1978 with Alistair Michie on the Lib-Lab pact, called The Pact. A while later I got hold of a copy, read it and realised that that, yes, it may well be the best book available on how coalitions actually work at Westminster (even if the Lib-Lab pact wasn’t a full coalition).

And so I’m delighted to tell you all that it is being republished by Faber & Faber, with new prefaces from David Steel and Roy Hattersley. In his preface, Steet writes about how the pact “laid the foundations for the later unfortunate but necessary coalition with the wrong party”.

You will have to have some interest in the politics of the late 1970s to enjoy the book, but what is remarkable is how quite a lot of it is applicable to the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition formed more than 30 years after The Pact was written. To underline the point, here are five things you can learn about coalition government from the book.

1 - Coalition government leads to Westminster conventions being rewritten.

Over the years the Palace of Westminster has accumulated, almost silted up within its walls, a mass of procedure and convention. This determines how the House of Commons and the House of Lords run themselves and how, indirectly, they govern us. The procedure is laid down in the massive 1,089-page volume of ‘Erskine May’ ... but the convention is not written down anywhere. Nobody had realised until 1977 and 1978 just how much of this convention could be conveniently ignored by a government determined to save its own life.

Simon would have loved the chance to sketch Danny Alexander delivering his alternative budget statement in the Commons, and his yellow despatch box, but he had seen all this coming. (Alexander was setting a precedent for minor party coalition ministers making their own party political finance statements from the despatch box.) What makes this insight particularly important is the prospect of more convention-busting after 7 May. For example; I have already heard experts suggesting that a minority government could actually lose a vote on the Queen’s Speech without having to resign.

2 - Political parties are culturally quite different, and they don’t always understand each other very well.

Political parties in Britian generally misunderstand each other. Labour MPs tend to believe that Liberals are as keen to hold office and to cling on to their seats as they are. Liberal MPs fail to comprehend the intensity of the socialist faith which still burns within some Labour MPs. To the average Labour cabinet minister, the concerns and the beliefs of an Ulster Unionist are as strange and unfathomable as the initiation rites in his Ballymena Orange Lodge. The Conservative party provides as many mysteries as any Brazilian forest tribe or Tibetan monestery. Nor are the parties particularly keen to understand one another, since like all institutions the subject they find most fascinating is their own internal politics.

This is the opening passage of the book, and it contains a great truth about British politics. One of the problems with the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition was that it took Nick Clegg and David Cameron a while to realise that they had less in common than they first thought in those heady days of the rose garden press conference.

3 - Minority government can offer a small party a wonderful chance to be important.

Just before Steel took over, the Liberal party was going nowhere at all. It lacked ambition, it lacked a lot of drive, and it lacked a leader who had any concept of what might be done with the votes and the support that the party had accumulated through the early 70s. What Steel offered was direction, a purpose and an ambition. Within months of becoming leader he had placed the party absolutely at the centre of British political life, and had made it too important to be ignored by anybody. His aspirations may end in disaster, or they may end in triumph. But the alternative to them was a continued dull stagnation with Steel has swept away forever.

Replace Steel with Clegg, and alter the timings a bit, and this could apply to the current Lib Dem leader. (Now, of course, we realise that those aspirations do “end in disaster”.)

4 - Liberal are not always good at choosing popular causes.

Like many other causes which are close to the Liberal heart, it is extremely important, it is very complicated, it extends the principle of democracy (or at least it allows people to vote more often, which is not quite the same thing) and it is to all except the cognoscenti, horrendously dull.

Simon was writing here about devolution. But he could have written almost exactly the same about AV.

5 - Minority parties in a pact/coalition need to be stubborn.

In the end they had nothing more to negotiate with than sheer bloody-mindedness, a quality of which most Liberals are extremely short. They could have used a bit more in 1977.

And over the health and social care bill too, you could argue. Some Lib Dems are now saying they should have shown more “bloody-mindedness” in the early days of the coalition.

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Last night at least two organisations produced data trying to establish who won the Cameron/Miliband showdown using Twitter sentiment analysis.

Now TheySay, another company, has produced its own figures. It says Ed Miliband won - just.

TheySay monitored 210,864 Cameron tweets and 284,896 Miliband tweets,

Miliband scored 52% positive, 48% negative, TheySay say.

And Cameron scored 47% positive, 53% negative.

Last night the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, using similar techniques, said Miliband won. But comparable research for SunNation said there was no overall winner.

The Royal College of Midwives has also welcomed Labour’s pledge to increase health spending. Jon Skewes, its communications director, said:

We welcome the vital extra money for the NHS that Labour is pledging to provide. The RCM is very pleased to see the clear and specific commitment to 3,000 more NHS midwives. So long as the number of births does not start to rise again, these extra midwives could potentially eliminate England’s long-standing midwifery shortage.

Mark Porter, the British Medical Association council chair, has welcomed Ed Miliband’s NHS announcement. He said:

The test of any health policy should be whether it benefits patients, yet 95% of doctors do not believe the quality of patient care has improved under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

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He added:

Proposals to remove the most damaging elements of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, to support more joined-up care and to prevent the private sector from cherry-picking the most profitable services are a step in the right direction. The BMA wants a publicly-provided and funded health service, and believes the NHS should always be the preferred provider.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, has launched the Scottish Labour campaign in Glasgow. My colleague Libby Brooks has filmed a short interview with him.

Murphy told her that Ed Miliband was “brilliant”, “passionate” and “angry” in the TV showdown last night.

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• Ed Miliband has announced that Labour would impose a cap on the profits that private providers can make from NHS contracts. The cap would normally be imposed at 5%, and would just cover clinical services. On the World at One just now, Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has said that most providers would be affected because the typical profit margin in the sector is between 5% and 10%.

• More than 400 people complained to media regulator Ofcom and Channel 4 about perceived bias in the treatment of Ed Miliband and David Cameron in the first of the TV leader events on Channel 4 and Sky News, it has been revealed.

• Labour will make important gains in London in the general election, according to a special Guardian/ICM telephone poll which shows the party winning several seats in the capital.

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• Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, has said says her message to people across the UK is that they have a progressive ally in the SNP, at the end of a week in which the former first minister, Alex Salmond, threatened to “exploit Labour weaknesses” if his party held the balance of power after May’s general election. She was speaking before the start of the SNP’s spring conference in Glasgow. With 3,000 people attending, it is the party’s biggest conference ever.

• Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cyrmu leader, has launched her party’s election campaign sayiing more Plaid MPs would ensure Wales was no longer “over-looked and marginalised”.