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By Tony Grew - 28th November 2009
Shadow welfare minister Lord Freud has revealed that former prime minister Tony Blair's backing for his plans to reform welfare were effectively snubbed by Gordon Brown.
In an interview with The House Magazine, the peer said he would be "pleased" to serve as minister for welfare reform under David Cameron.
Lord Freud also talked about his famous family.
"My father, Anton, hammered into me the importance of our family heritage," he said.
"He treated the Nazi regime almost as a personal affront, and in 1945 [as a member of the Special Operations Executive], he parachuted back in to Austria and single-handedly captured the Nazi aerodrome of Zeltweg.
"It was a suicidal act, and without that driven sense of identity as the grandson of Sigmund Freud, and the need to live up to such a high achiever, I don't believe he would have made the attempt."
In 2006 Tony Blair asked David Freud, a journalist and City deal-maker, to undertake an indepdendent review of the welfare system.
His recommendations included an expanded role for the private sector and plans to get single parents back into work earlier.
Lord Freud told The House Magazine that his welfare reform plans were effectively blocked by Gordon Brown.
"I wanted to restructure the welfare reform industry so that it could get payment by results, but my report moved in a slightly odd way and went in and out of political favour," he said.
"Tony Blair was clearly pushing my report, but at the launch in early March 2007 Gordon Brown was very careful to say that the report underpinned the importance of welfare reform, which he would champion, rather than that he would champion my report.
"At the time, however, it wasn't clear to me that it had stalled."
In February this year he was offered a seat in the House of Lords and a welfare reform shadow portfolio by David Cameron.
Lord Freud invites parallels with Frank Field's appointment as minister for welfare reform in 1997.
Field's radical plans were shelved after rows with Brown and social security secretary Harriet Harman and he resigned from Tony Blair's government just 17 months into New Labour's first term of office.
The House Magazine is available from Monday.
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