Conservative lawmaker Sarah Wollaston told the BBC that Treasury chief George Osborne should come back to Parliament to revise his budget decisions.
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“The truth is yes, we need to get the deficit down, but we need to make sure we widen the scope of where we look to get that deficit down and not just narrow it down on working age benefits”, Mr Duncan Smith said.
But he said the Government’s “deliberate targeting of disabled people to pay for tax cuts in the Budget” had been “exposed so mercilessly” by Mr Duncan Smith’s explosive resignation.
The Government is now set to climbdown over the controversial moves to curb the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which had been earmarked to save £1.3bn a year.
The new Work and Pensions Secretary, Stephen Crabb, told the Commons that the cuts had been abandoned – less than a week after they were announced in George Osborne’s Budget.
Labour MPs cried “where is he?” and “frit” as the Chancellor’s Treasury colleague David Gauke was wheeled out to become the fairground target and, as the Shadow Chancellor noted, to “defend the indefensible”.
Given the issues around disability benefits in particular, wouldn’t it be “the prudent thing for the chancellor to withdraw this Budget and start again”.
Mr Cameron attempted to heal deep wounds in the Conservative party by praising Mr Duncan Smith following a weekend of bitter recriminations.
Mr Cameron also issued a clear public defence of finance minister Mr Osborne, a potential successor, whose standing was rocked by Mr Duncan Smith’s scathing resignation letter.
Mr Cameron also sought to defuse a damaging backbench revolt, confirming that ministers would not seek to oppose amendments to the Budget on the so-called “tampon tax” and VAT on solar panels. The country will decide in a June 23 referendum whether to remain in the 28-nation bloc.
He said he wasn’t consulted on the decision Friday to review the disability-benefit changes following criticism. “That is what some people are now saying and I totally and utterly reject that”, he told ITV’s The Agenda.
Rumors of a possible leadership challenge are circulating in Westminster following Duncan Smith’s resignation and amid ongoing grievances over Cameron’s pro-EU bias.
“It seems to me we need to look at the very heart of this Government, at its incompetence, at the way it puts forward proposals that simply don’t add up and expects the most needy in our society to take the hit for them”.
West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin, who works as a Treasury minister underneath the Chancellor, was unable to comment on the row today but is expected to address parliament this evening.
The Chancellor dismissed Iain Duncan Smith’s claim that he was putting the better-off before the most vulnerable as he prepared to face MPs over how he will fill a “huge hole” in his calculations. “Otherwise why has Duncan Smith supported 6 years of Conservative budgets that have clobbered the disabled and working poor to fund giveaways for the wealthiest?”
As part of the EU-Turkey deal, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu demanded three billion more euros to be given to the country from the EU over the next two years, visa-free access to the bloc for 75 million Turkish citizens and negotiations to resume on Turkey’s accession to the EU.
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“I think it’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer who should be going”.
