A DERBYSHIRE Tory MP says he would "soften the edges" of the so-called bedroom tax after Labour pledged to get rid of it at its party conference.
Amber Valley's Nigel Mills was speaking after Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls today set out his priorities for a first Labour Budget if they win next May's General Election.
Mr Balls also said he would cut ministers' pay by 5%, raise the minimum wage to £7 an hour, cut business rates and bring in a 20-month freeze on energy prices.
And he said child benefit payments would not rise in line with inflation but by a fixed rate of 1% per year until 2017 in a bid to save cash.
He said Labour was serious about "balancing the books" in the next Parliament and would not "make any promises it cannot keep or afford".
The Government has said the "bedroom tax", which it calls the removal of the spare room subsidy, is aimed at encouraging people to downsize and freeing up empty bedrooms, as well as tackling the nation's huge benefits bill.
People in social housing lose 14% of their weekly housing benefit for having one spare room and 25% for two or more.
But critics say there are not enough smaller homes for people to move into and that it has unfairly penalised disabled people.
Mr Mills said the subsidy should not be removed completely as the principle of it was correct and it had been in place for 18 months.
But he said he would "soften the edges" of the subsidy, calling it "a bit crazy" to move disabled people from properties that have been adapted to their needs at a cost of thousands of pounds.
The Government says that it is providing councils with cash for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) to help vulnerable people unable to cover their rent.
But Mr Mills said: "I always believe we should get the rules right in the first place rather than trying to soften the rules with DHPs after they are in place."
Mr Balls said Labour would maintain the cap on national benefits pay-outs, aiming to increase child tax benefits to match inflation from 2017, but capping the rise at 1% until then.
He said his party would also tackle the deficit by reversing tax cuts for hedge funds, levying a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2 million, and scrapping George Osborne's "shares for rights" scheme.
This involves employees forfeiting certain employment rights in return for shares in the companies they work for.
In yesterday's speech, Mr Balls also promised to reduce the annual salary of Cabinet ministers, who currently earn £134,565 a year.
They were cut by 5% when the Coalition came to power and left at that level for the whole Parliament, in the aftermath of the expenses scandal.
Mr Balls said he would slash a further 5% from the take-home pay of its top team – almost £7,000.
Mr Mills said: "£135,000 is a lot of money. I wouldn't have any objection to that being cut.
"When we [the Conservatives] went into the last election we wanted to cut the number of MPs to 600 so I think there are plenty of savings that can be made in politics."
He said his party had already promised an above-inflation minimum wage and said he was concerned that the energy prices freeze could see the cost to the consumer going up in advance.
Mr Mills said: "It would have been better if there hadn't been far too few energy companies in the country when Labour left power.
"It [the high cost of energy] is something that needs to be fixed by more competition."
