Stand by your plan: Treasury's Lib Dem backs Osborne

By Alex Stevenson

Danny Alexander will demonstrate his complete commitment to George Osborne's 'plan A' in his speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton later.

The chief secretary to the Treasury will argue there "could not be a worse time to argue that we should abandon our plan" in spite of opposition anger at the harshness of the coalition's austerity drive.

"We won't do it. It is the foundation for everything else," he will insist.

"It is the foundation for jobs and prosperity in the future."

This year's double-dip recession has forced the chancellor and his Lib Dem ally to rethink their spending cuts plans, which will now extend into the next parliament for two more years.

"That was the right, pragmatic response to things getting worse," he is expected to add.

"We have rebuilt the confidence in this nation's ability to pay its way in the world, we can now put that credibility to work for the British people."

Lib Dems have made clear in Brighton they will publish joint spending plans for the 2015/16 financial year but offer their own agenda for the remaining four years of the next parliament.

Pollsters suggest that the 2015 general election could easily result in another hung parliament in which the Liberal Democrats could again feature. But the party will need to save as many of their 59 seats as possible to have a role, leading to pressure on their activists to demonstrate the difference they are making in power.

"Things are different in this country because the Liberal Democrats are in the government and in the end, people in government judge you by what you do, not what you say," Alexander insisted on the Today programme earlier.

"It's not enough just to say we are making things less bad - we are making society better in a whole range of ways."

"In government I am delivering alongside the Conservatives the very difficult decisions that we need to stabilise the difficult economic situation we face.

"I am delivering extra money for the pupil premium, extra money for post offices, tax cuts for low income earners, crackdown on tax avoiders...  these are things that are happening because we are in a coalition government - because Liberal Democrats have their stamp not just on the government but on the Treasury, too."

Moves against 'tax dodgers' will be the focus of Alexander's speech later. In 2010 he used his conference speech in Liverpool to pledge the government would receive an extra £7 billion in revenue by 2015.

"Today I can announce as a result of our extra investment we are on track to raise almost £4 billion this year," he will say.

"Fair taxes in tough times means everyone playing by the same rule book, and everyone paying their fair share."

The Treasury is doubling the size of its team focused on Liechtenstein in order to bring in an extra £3 billion, following Labour's completion of a 2009 agreement with the European mini-state which forces those using it to bring their tax affairs up to date by 2016.