Tory Plan To Lower Benefits Cap To £23,000

David Cameron will today pledge to lower the benefit cap from £26,000-a-year per family to £23,000 if his party wins the election.

The party will also lay out plans to strip 18 to 21-year-olds of jobseeker's allowance and instead given them a six-month limited allowance.

After it runs out they will have to take up an apprenticeship, job or do daily community work for their benefits.

The hope is that an even tougher stance on welfare will appeal to the electorate, as polls suggest the cap has been one of the coalition's most popular policies.

It has been sold as being about fairness, by ensuring no one on benefits earns more than the average working family.

But it has been hugely controversial among charities.

They point out that the families worst affected are those with large numbers of children who would receive a benefit top-up if they were working.

The money saved will be ploughed into three million apprenticeships over the next Parliament.

The policy was meant to be the centrepiece of the first day of the final annual conference before the general election.

But it was overshadowed by news of another defection to UKIP and resignation of a minister over allegations he sent sexually explicit pictures over the internet.

Mr Cameron said the policy would give young people a "better, more secure future".

George Osborne, the Chancellor, added that the aim was to say "it's not acceptable for young people to go from school straight to benefits".

It came as the PM admitted that he had thought about resigning over Scotland if he had lost the vote.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, he said: "I thought about it a lot. Emotionally I would have been very winded and wounded.

"I thought in many ways that is what I would want to do.

"I would have felt it as a huge blow. I'm very glad I didn't have to say it."

Mr Cameron added that he did not sleep on the night of the referendum despite trying, and ended up in the press office at 3am as the results came in.

His children also got up, sensing his nerves, and sat on his knee. But he told the newspaper that in the end it would have been his "duty" to carry on.

He also insisted that he would serve a full term if he won the next election.

And he told the newspaper that he wanted to make the case for extending military action against IS to Syria, insisting: "We think we could do more.

"We have to demonstrate to people that we'd like a UN security council resolution but it's very difficult to get one and to demonstrate that what we propose is legal.

"Attempts have been made but there's the existence of a Russian veto."