Cameron pledges to ban tax rises until 2020

David Cameron will on Wednesday promise a law banning any rise in income tax, VAT or national insurance in the next parliament, in a highly unusual move that would severely restrict the Treasury's room to manoeuvre if he won a second term.

Mr Cameron hopes the tax promise will inject momentum into his campaign, by highlighting the party's commitment to low taxes, but Labour's Ed Balls dismissed the five-year tax lock as a "last-minute gimmick" and predicted it would be reversed.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Tory MPs are drawing up plans to bind the prime minister's hands in coalition talks if he falls short of an absolute majority.

The backbench 1922 committee, the body representing Tory MPs, has convened a meeting on the Monday after polling day on May 7, in which members will set down ground rules for any coalition, expected to include a tough line on Europe.

After being cut out of the talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in 2010, senior backbenchers are mobilising early to ensure that Mr Cameron does not present them with a "fait accompli" in any coalition negotiations.

"We don't want the 1922 to meet for the first time and for the prime minister to come and say 'here is my deal'," said one senior Tory MP. "We want to be able to say this is what we will accept and this is what we won't accept."

The prime minister's promise is the latest in a string of offers by both leading parties in the closely fought campaign. He will outline a law guaranteeing no increases in income tax rates, no rise in VAT or widening of its scope or any increases in national insurance before 2020.

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The move would severely tie the chancellor's hands in the event of an economic shock.

Mr Balls, shadow chancellor, said Mr Cameron was having to make such a promise because the Tories were "losing the argument". "The problem they've got now is a £12bn commitment to cut welfare and no detail at all," he told the BBC Today radio programme on Wednesday morning.

"These promises are ten-a-penny from David Cameron," he said. "In English we have a phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. People were bitten very hard by David Cameron."

Mr Balls said the fact that such a promise would be enshrined in law counted for little. "[Mr Cameron] legislated to balance the books by 2015 and failed."

Data on Tuesday showed the UK economy grew at its slowest pace since the final quarter of 2012 in the first three months of the year. But while the figures were notably weaker than the 0.6 per cent expansion in the previous quarter, unofficial survey data remain strong. The figures are also preliminary and will be revised in coming months.

<>Labour claimed the data showed the economy was not delivering for working families. Mr Cameron tweeted that they showed "we can't take the recovery for granted". Some economists said the recovery was robust and the data did not represent the start of a serious slowdown.

One minister told the FT on Monday that the move by the 1922 Committee was "not helpful". It was a view echoed by a former Tory cabinet minister who described its behaviour as "absolutely dreadful".

"They will meet and they will say, we should have been tougher on Europe, we should have promised more tax cuts, we should have been tougher on immigration," the former minister said.

Mr Cameron says he "will not have succeeded" if he fails to win an outright majority, but most senior Tories expect him to stay on as prime minister if he can command enough votes to return to Number 10.

Mr Cameron has jettisoned his jacket this week to adopt a more "pumped-up" election style in response to concerns from a number of Tory candidates that his campaign lacked urgency.

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