Coalition drafts 'mid-term review'
A "mid-term review" of the coalition Government will be published in the new year, Nick Clegg has said - although it is still to be finalised between the parties.
The Deputy Prime Minister said he had lengthy discussions with David Cameron about the document, which will present "important new steps" in policy.
Asked about the fate of the long-promised statement - which will also contain an audit on progress towards meeting the coalition agreement, Mr Clegg told the Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: "We will be publishing it in the new year. In fact, the Prime Minister and I spent a fair amount of time yesterday afternoon going over some of the details."
He told the MPs: "It'll be quite a candid assessment, quite a simple sort of assessment of what we have done, but on the whole I hope it will actually surprise on the upside: we have achieved a great, great deal of the coalition agreement in terms of implementing it.
"The second part of it, which is still the subject of course of discussion within the coalition, is what new initiatives do we want to highlight or announce as being important new steps we want to take - legislative and policy steps - in the second part of the parliament."
Mr Clegg signalled that he backed attacks by Liberal Democrat Cabinet ministers on George Osborne over his justification for a benefit squeeze.
The Chancellor told MPs in his Autumn Statement that he wanted to be fair to those who "see their neighbour still asleep, living a life on benefits" when they set off for work.
But Business Secretary Vince Cable said he thought it was "completely wrong" to use language that made claimants feel like "scroungers". And Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander also criticised his tone.
The Liberal Democrat leader said they had been "perfectly entitled" to express those views and denied it represented any split over policy.
He was also downbeat about the prospects of progress on party funding reform. Cross-party talks were revived in April under Mr Clegg but remain deadlocked amid failure to find compromise over curbs to private and trade union donations. Asked how the talks were going, Mr Clegg said simply: "They're going."
