Latest Updates from The WAUGH ZONE

* Paul Waugh

by Paul WAUGH | Politics

Wavering Tory MPs are this week being called in for No.10 and Treasury chats to reassure them about the tax credits cuts policy. Those chats may well be more nuanced than the firm line being put out by Downing Street and the Chancellor’s team. A Downing Street source tells the FT today: “We are not going to move on it all. We are steadfastly committed to this whole policy. No caveats.” That fits with the staunch noises Treasury sources have been issuing for weeks.

But ministers are even putting an arm around some crossbenchers in the Lords and there’s good reason for that. HuffPost has learned that a leading crossbencher is being lined up to table a ‘fatal motion’ to the tax credits statutory instrument when it comes up next Monday. The motion is expected to be tabled this week, part of a wider strategy of blocking the plans in the Lords and then using a Frank Field backbench debate in the Commons a week later to set out an alternative.

One leading name being considered is Baroness (Molly) Meacher, a former social work expert who has forced Government defeats on welfare before. At one stage, even former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell’s name cropped up but I’m told he’s not interested. The bishops may turn out, but tax credits campaigners won’t this time have GOD (Gus’s nickname) on their side...

‘Fatal’ motions are rarely deployed in the Lords because they are a last-resort nuclear weapon to stop a piece of secondary legislation and peers have for years been wary of overstepping their powers. But two factors are in play: Labour and the Lib Dems have an in-built anti-Tory majority, and both point out that tax credits cuts were not in the Tory manifesto. If enough crossbenchers turn out too, next Monday could see the cuts stopped in their tracks.

Of course, the SI could then be reintroduced again and again, but the Lords could block it again and again too. The Lords aims to judo-throw the Treasury over its attempt to curtail scrutiny in the Commons. Instead of putting the cuts in the Finance Bill, they were curiously put in an SI that would allow only 90 minutes debate and a swift Commons vote. Frank Field tells me tax credit cuts could be fatal to Osborne's chances of becoming PM, undermining his 2020 'strivers' strategy.

Few expect the Treasury to back down but other ways of easing the pain are being urged (possibly with a fresh bump in childcare?) by worried Conservatives. Tory MP Flick Drummond told Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night that she would look ‘very carefully’ at Field’s plan: “We’ve all heard from constituents who are worried. Quite a lot of us are concerned about the impact on particularly low income families.” Referring to the Autumn Statement, she added: “I think there’s going to be a big swell of opinion that will want something to happen to alleviate it.” Let’s see.

As for Labour, yesterday wasn’t a triumph as John McDonnell had to use Twitter to clarify his party would reverse the tax credits cuts. And it has to explain where it would get the £4.4bn savings elsewhere. Meanwhile, Mike Gapes aka TwitterRambo, is on the warpath with 38 Degrees after it wrongly claimed he and other Labour MPs had voted for the cuts.

* Paul Waugh is the Executive Editor, Politics, HuffPost UK.