Cameron faces Europe referendum row
Updated on 04 October 2009
David Cameron begins his party conference promising radical change but is plagued by the same old problems over Europe. Gary Gibbon reports.
It is the first Tory conference in Manchester for 100 years but age-old arguments threaten the party's modernised image.
Mr Cameron was hoping to concentrate on his plans to overhaul the benefits system. Instead he is trying to head off a row on Europe, prompted by Ireland's yes vote yesterday on the new Lisbon treaty.
Despite his opposition to the treaty and his calls for a vote on it in Britain, Mr Cameron is refusing to promise to hold a referendum if the treaty has already come into effect by the time he is in office.
That puts him at odds with vast numbers of his own party - and some high profile ones too.
So on the eve of Conservative party conference, David Cameron is tonight trying to keep a lid on a potentially dangerous rift with his Eurosceptics.
They are demanding he keeps his pledge for a referendum on the treaty, regardless of whether it has been ratified or not.
He is refusing to do that and is instead focusing on plans to shake up the welfare system.
David Cameron set out plans for a "very radical" reform of the welfare system to ease the rising unemployment crisis today as he pledged to make the Tories "the party of jobs and opportunities".
The opposition leader said the package, which will require a £600m cash investment and see Labour schemes such as the New Deal and Train to Gain scrapped, would be the focus of his party's conference in Manchester this week.
Mr Cameron said an explanation of the "tough and difficult" choices that would be required to find the money, would be published tomorrow alongside the details of the Get Britain Working shake up.
Among promises are faster help for the young jobless and more efforts to get people off incapacity benefit, with a "much more aggressive" use of the private and voluntary sector.
Rules will be changed to allow payment by results with anticipated savings from welfare bills available up front to get people jobs in the first place.
"What we are doing is making the centrepiece of our conference a really massive Get Britain Working programme," the Tory leader told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "Labour are now the party of unemployment; I want the new Conservative party to be the party of jobs and opportunity and at the heart of it is a big, bold and radical scheme to get millions of people back to work.
"It is the big centrepiece of our conference because we recognise that the jobs crisis is one of the most serious things we face as a country.
"If we don't deal with it, it is not just bad for those people who are unemployed now, there is a danger that short-term unemployment becomes long-term unemployment and builds up massive problems for our families and for our country in the future."
Asked how the new system would be funded given the state of the economy and the need for spending cuts, he said: "We will be very clear in our document, released tomorrow, exactly how we pay for that, where every last penny of the money comes from.
"There is a £600m up-front cost and we will show the very tough and difficult choices we are going to make to meet that."
The package was also said to involve the introduction of rigorous medical checks to establish whether the 2.6m people claiming incapacity benefit are capable of working.
"Some of those people cannot work and must be helped for we are a compassionate society and we must look after those people.
But many people could work and there are some who, with some tailored help, could work," he said. There would also be 200,000 extra apprenticeships and 10,000 extra university places next year, he said.
Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan spoke to Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles spoke to Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
Gary Gibbon reports live from the Tory party conference.
