You’ll have to put up taxes, Clegg tells Osborne

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, the Deputy Prime Minister said it is simply not “plausible” for George Osborne and the Conservatives to maintain their current position that no further tax hikes will be required after 2015 amid the ongoing spending squeeze.

“I will certainly be seeking to confront the Conservatives with economic reality,” Mr Clegg said.

“I don’t know of any fiscal contraction anywhere in the developed world that is only delivered through spending cuts.”

The Lib Dem leader will round off a highly successful party conference in Glasgow this afternoon with the announcement – unveiled last night – that every child in the country is to get free lunches for the first three years of primary school from next September.

The unexpected giveaway in his leader’s speech will cost £600m-a-year, and was described by Lib Dem sources as a “straight up-and-down deal” with the Conservatives that will see Mr Osborne finally deliver his long-promised tax break for married couples in this year’s Autumn Statement.

Around 1.5 million children in infant classes will benefit from the free meals policy, which Mr Clegg will hail as having the twin benefits of raising standards in schools while easing the squeeze on living standards for families across the country, to the tune of an average £437 per child.

But he will also use the announcement to illustrate clear dividing lines with his coalition partners over tax and spend policy ahead of the next election.

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, he said Mr Osborne’s assertion earlier this year that further tax hikes will not be required in the next Parliament stretched the bounds of credibility.

“I just don’t think it’s plausible – I certainly don’t think it’s fair – to suggest that another five years of fiscal contraction can all be scooped out of public spending,” the Sheffield Hallam MP said.

“I just don’t believe that, and my party doesn’t believe that. The Conservatives will have to spell out before the next general election quite how many people will see lower social care, or fewer police officers on the street, or more cuts to the military, if they really refuse to ask the very wealthiest in society to make a bit of an extra contribution.”

Mr Clegg highlighted his “mansion tax” on expensive properties, and a tightening of capital gains tax and pension relief, as examples of tax hikes he would push for if his party remains in government beyond 2015.

“We’ll set out details in the manifesto,” he said. “I’m not going to write our tax policy now.”

Earlier in the day, however, Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Treasury Secretary, made clear all three measures will be a “central promise” of the party’s 2015 offer.

In his conference speech, Mr Alexander said: “By committing to raise taxes on the very wealthy through the mansion tax, through restricting pension tax relief, through increasing capital gains tax rates further, the Liberal Democrats will ensure that those who have the most will continue to contribute the most.

“These taxes on the very wealthy will be one of our central promises for the next Parliament.”

Mr Clegg’s own keynote speech this afternoon is being billed as his most personal to date, and will contain passages contrasting his “privileged” upbringing with the “traumas” experienced by his grandparents – one a Dutch prisoner-of-war, another a refugee from the Russian revolution.