Tory MP Heidi Allen was cheered by Labour MPs on Tuesday as she urged chancellor George Osborne to reconsider plans to cut tax credits for low earners and support "real people".
The new Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire used her maiden speech in the House of Commons to appeal to the prime minister and chancellor to show compassion to working families, calling upcoming reforms "too hard and too fast".
Allen was speaking in an opposition day debate to discuss the government's plans to cut tax credits. Pressure is building on the chancellor to mitigate the impacts on the vulnerable after analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that hundreds of thousands of families could lose thousands of pounds a year.
Although the Tory MP said she disagreed with Labour's approach and that tax credits needed reform, she said that "the pace of these reforms is too hard and too fast. As these proposals stand, too many people will be adversely affected. Something must give.
"For those of us proud enough to call ourselves compassionate Conservatives, it must not be on the backs of the working families we purport to serve."
The Conservative MP voted in support of changes to tax credits two weeks ago. But she warned that ministers needed to think carefully about who was being hit.
She said: "I worry that our single-minded determination to reach a budget surplus is betraying who we are. ... I know that true Conservatives have compassion running through their veins.
“I am not interested in the colour of the government who created a bloated welfare state. That is in the past. I don’t care whose fault it is, but I do know one thing – it is not the fault of the recipients of tax credits.
“This is not a spreadsheet exercise. ... We are talking about real people, working people.”
Allen's speech stunned MPs in a hushed House of Commons chamber. As she sat down, a number of Labour MPs shouted "courageous".
The SNP MP Mhairi Black, who electrified the Commons with her own maiden speech this year, tweeted that it was "the first time I've heard genuinely compassionate conservatism". Even the shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott described it as "moving".
But Allen's brave stance was not warmly welcomed by senior Conservative MPs.
An interesting career choice, says a senior minister of @heidiallen75's maiden speech attacking the government over tax credits
In response to praise, she joked that she was checking she still had a job.
@lesterslams 😂 Am just checking I've still got a job!
Allen is not the only Conservative MP to speak out against the changes. Three MPs – London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, former frontbencher David Davis, and Stephen McPartland – have backed a call by Labour MP Frank Field for more time to discuss the cuts.
McPartland, one of two Tory MPs who voted against the changes to tax credits, told BuzzFeed News that the government needed to add mitigation "to help support those who are going to be most attacked by the changes. ... If you remove a large chunk of somebody's income without putting some support, that's not rewarding people getting up and going to work. It's punishing them."
He added that he would keep raising the issue until George Osborne's autumn statement.
BuzzFeed News understands that Field spoke to the backbench business committee on Tuesday afternoon about being allocated time to discuss a motion, calling on the government to bring forward proposals that would mitigate the impact of the cuts on the lowest-paid workers.
Other Conservative MPs also publicly spoke out against tax credit cuts during the debate. Edward Leigh, the Tory MP for Gainsborough, said: "It might be worth looking at tweaking the the child tax credits or the married allowance ... just in terms of compassion, to try and soften the blow."
Meanwhile Sylvia Harmon, the independent MP for North Down said she was "embarrassed" that she voted to cut tax credits. "I did so on the basis and clear understanding there would be mitigation of the worst effects of the cuts to tax credits in the chancellor's autumn statement," she said.