[Photo: Chancellor Osborne. Photograph Creative Commons]

LONDON (AA) – Welfare proposals that led to the resignation of a leading member of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Cabinet were scrapped Tuesday, allowing the government’s annual budget to pass through parliament, local media reported.

Plans to make 4.4 billion pounds ($6.25 billion) worth of cuts to payments for disabled people were abandoned by Chancellor George Osborne, who saw his budget passed by 310 votes to 275, the BBC said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said this cut would have seen 370,000 disabled people lose an average of £3,500 a year.

However the Chancellor will have to find the £4.4bn which he hopes will be paid for by improivng in economy which is in doubt

The resignation of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith on Friday over cuts to the personal independence payments (PIPs) put pressure on Osborne, who had proposed the savings to balance the national budget by 2020.

Speaking on Tuesday, Osborne said he would make no further reductions to welfare spending.

“By not proceeding with the PIP changes it means spending on disabled people will be just over £1 billion a year higher by the end of the decade than was set out in the budget,” he said.

Duncan Smith’s resignation was politically damaging for Cameron, who had suggested the governing Conservatives’ financial plans were designed to benefit higher-earning taxpayers and pensioners – traditionally part of the party’s voter base.

It also drew attention to the Conservatives’ precarious position in parliament. Cameron’s party has a House of Commons majority of just 17 seats and is a minority in the upper chamber, making him vulnerable to rebellions from his own members.

Author Michael Sercan Daventry

Additional reporting The Muslim News