U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron plans to give married couples a tax break, he said before the start of his Conservative Party’s annual conference Monday.

Cameron’s relationship with Conservative lawmakers this year has been characterized by a series of unprecedented defeats, with record numbers refusing to back his legislative program and then a smaller number voting against his call for action in Syria.

The policy made public Saturday by the prime minister has been regularly called for by some of his critics within the party. From 2015, a person who doesn’t earn enough to use all of their 10,200-pound ($16,400) tax-free allowance will be able to transfer 1,000 pounds of it to their spouse. It won’t apply to couples in which one person pays tax at the 40 percent rate ― likely to be on earnings of more than 42,285 pounds. 

“There is something special about marriage: It’s a declaration of commitment, responsibility and stability that helps to bind families,” Cameron wrote in Saturday’s Daily Mail newspaper. “When I ran for the leadership of my party back in 2005, I said that I wanted to do more for marriage in the tax system. So this week at the Conservative Party’s conference in Manchester, I’m going to deliver on the promise I made.”

The policy, which would also apply to same-sex civil partnerships, will be worth 200 pounds a year to a couple in which one partner earns less than 10,200 pounds and the other between 11,200 and 42,285 pounds. The Conservative Party estimated the measure would benefit 4 million couples. By introducing it in the election year of 2015, Cameron will be able to challenge the opposition Labour Party, which is against the policy, over whether they would try to revoke it. (Bloomberg)

Cameron’s coalition government drew fire from some Conservatives in its first year in office for announcing plans to stop people in the 40 percent tax bracket from receiving child benefit, a payment worth 1,752 pounds a year to a couple with two children. The Treasury eventually scaled back the plans to a taper of the payments at a higher threshold.

The Conservatives’ Liberal Democrat coalition partners, who said they won’t oppose the marriage tax break, compared it to their own party-conference announcement on Sept. 17 of a proposal to give free school meals to children age 4 to 7.

Labour’s Treasury spokesman, Rachel Reeves, said the Conservative proposal showed the party had the wrong priorities. “David Cameron’s so-called marriage tax break won’t even help two-thirds of married couples, let alone millions of people who are separated, widowed or divorced,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “He’s so out of touch he thinks people will get married for 3.85 pounds a week.” 

(Bloomberg)