ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

Liberal Democrat Treasury minister Danny Alexander demanded today that his boss George Osborne give a new tax break to millions of low and middle income families.

Mr Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will call at his party’s annual rally in Brighton next week for the starting threshold for paying income tax to be raised to £10,000 within 19 months.

The senior Lib-Dem said: “We need fairer taxes in these tough times.

“From April next year, we will have lifted two million people out of income tax altogether and provided a tax cut of almost £550 to over 20 million low and middle earners.

“Lifting the personal allowance to £10,000 would provide a further £160 tax cut to low and middle earners and take hundreds of thousands more out of tax.”

Lib-Dem sources said the change would mean millions of families with two earners would be more than £1,400 better off from this policy championed by Nick Clegg’s party. It could also benefit higher rate taxpayers.

The Chancellor signalled in his March Budget that the personal allowance — the amount on which people do not pay income tax — could rise to £10,000 in April 2014.

He said the Government was “in touching distance” of this goal as the threshold was increased from £8,105 to £9,205 from April 2013.

Mr Alexander’s intervention will almost certainly annoy Tory MPs who will see it as the Lib-Dems seeking to grab the credit for lower taxes.

The Conservatives are determined to fight to cling onto their reputation as the low-tax party, with one source saying: “We will take all the credit for tax cuts at the next election.”

Mr Alexander is one of the Lib-Dems closest to the Tories and is part of the “quad” with David Cameron, Mr Osborne and Mr Clegg.

His tax motion, which aims to “stimulate consumer demand”, has been drawn up by the party’s federal policy committee. But it is significant that he is personally demanding the change as party chiefs are seeking increasingly to voice Lib-Dem aims and values before the next general election.

Party chairman Tim Farron will distance the Lib-Dems from the Tories, telling the annual conference: “Let’s be proud of who we are, and let’s make it blindingly clear what we stand for.

“It is essential that we state our different vision with absolute clarity. Subtlety won’t do. We are Britain’s radical, free-thinking, progressive party.”