Pensions minister Webb caught by secret recordings

The coalition government's cuts to child benefit for anyone earning over £44,000 is ‘a worry' and answers from the Treasury are ‘not good enough', pensions minister Steve Webb has been caught saying.

The minister was recorded in his surgery suggesting the cut is too harsh and needs refining, and he also hints at Liberal Democrat opposition to the new income limits. Webb was secretly recorded by Telegraph journalists posing as constituents, as part of a sting that yesterday saw business secretary Vince Cable saying he could bring down the coalition government if he were to leave. In the recording, Webb says: "I do not have a problem with the general idea that when money is tight, if you have got people on the highest incomes, we need to look at child benefit, but the question is: w...