'Tory budget propped up by Liberals:' Durkan

Mr Durkan was speaking during the budget debate at Westminster on Monday and said the full impact of the budget cuts will be felt in the autumn and called for the implementation of a Budget Committee at Westminster and challenged the government to change the Budget by reclassifying budget lines for frontline services.

He said: "This is a Tory budget with Liberal Democrat accessories. Some of those Liberal Democrat accessories are attractive - and that is part of the political calculation behind the budget - such as the triple guarantee on pensions.

"But Liberal Democrats need to consider that this may be as good as it gets in the coalition.

"The Lib Dems should realise they are no longer in the vanguard of social justice and civil liberty, but instead become the mudguard of a hard cutting Conservative government. That will be their role.

"The Chancellor said we would not have to look anywhere else for the budget, we would get it from him, with nothing hidden in the Red Book. However, we see it is littered with phrases such as 'We will produce proposals on this,' or, 'Other proposals will be published after we have the spending review in the autumn.' The details are all to come elsewhere.

"The scale of the cuts in the autumn is designed to drive a political narrative - that pain has to be imposed.

"Then, the poor, who are being asked to pay more in VAT, will see the services on which they rely squeezed.

"That is when the full toll of this Budget will be felt, contrary to what the Chancellor has said.

"This will be pain and penury by installments, over time, so that they can maintain the narrative of blaming it all on Labour.

"The government must lead us in changing the budget by reclassifying the budget lines, so that we have one for front-line services, for example, and one for spending that does not go fully to front-line services but broadly supports them.

"Then, we will know immediately if a measure affects front-line services. We could then be more honest when we say that we are defending front-line services, because we would have a Budget information system that allows us to do that."