Five reasons why the Comprehensive Spending Review is good for the poor

It was inevitable that Labour, the Unions, the IFS, parts of the BBC and Channel 4 would present a particular slant from the Comprehensive Spending Review.  It is not so inevitable however that Conservatives need to be on the defensive.

However difficult the cuts, the Budget, CSR - and Coalition policies as a whole - will result in a fundamental shift: from a society of dependency to one of aspiration.  From a client state waiting for handouts (to one interest group or another) to one which is entrepreneurial - both socially and economically.  Our whole aim is to rebuild economic capital - and social capital as well.

To take just five priorities: our support for apprentices, our plans for housing, the transformation of education, benefit reform and taxes:

1. Apprentices. Pushed through by John Hayes - we now have a Coalition Government commitment for 75,000 extra funded apprentices every year.  Not just for economic efficiency, but for social justice reasons as well, the apprenticeship and skills policy will get young people off the street and give them opportunities and jobs for the future.
2. Housing. Coalition plans will give people a chance to get on the housing ladder by giving social housing tenants a ten percent equity in their own homes which can be used as a deposit to buy their first home. There are proposals to give tenants in social housing the right to run businesses in their own homes - not allowed at present.
3. Education: Academies, Free schools and the poor pupils premium.  All of which give children a chance to get on the ladder of opportunity.
4. Benefit Reform. The whole thrust of the CSR is to make it financially viable for people to get back into work.
5. Tax policy. Raising the threshold for lower taxpayers.

To win this argument, we  need to ensure that we take the CSR, Budget as the context within a range of aspirational policies, rather than be forced to defend individual items just within the CSR.  We must make every effort to define 'progressive' and 'social justice' as meaning aspiration and opportunity.