Reeves to fill 'black hole' by axing help for pensioners

Chancellor draws gasps from MPs by restricting winter fuel payments as she announces series of early spending cuts

- DAVID MADDOX

Pensioners will take the brunt of a raft of brutal cuts announced by the new chancellor Rachel Reeves to deal with a ££22bn black hole in the country's finances. To gasps in the Commons chamber, Ms Reeves announced that she would be removing winter fuel payments from almost 7 million households and restricting the allowance to poorer pensioners.

The bold move on the winter fuel allowance – a benefit that was first introduced by Labour’s Tony Blair in 1997 – is similar to a policy proposed by Theresa May in 2017, when the outcry over the proposal almost sank the Tory election campaign. The plan did not feature in the Labour election manifesto this year, and visibly came as a complete shock to MPs.

Ms Reeves also cancelled the plan to introduce the Dilnot Commission recommendations on social care for the elderly next year, meaning that people will still have to sell their homes to pay for residential care.

Announcing a series of cuts, a sombre-looking Ms Reeves repeated: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.” She accused the previous government of a “cover-up” of the state of the nation’s finances, and also took the axe to Rishi Sunak’s legacy, scrapping his Advanced British Standard qualification – saving £260m in the process – and his plans to reopen railways, to be paid for out of High Speed 2 savings.

But even with £5.5bn of cuts announced for 2024-25, and another £8.1bn for the following year, Ms Reeves warned that there would be worse to come in her Budget on 30 October. She said: “I have to tell the House that the Budget will involve taking difficult decisions to meet our fiscal rules across spending, welfare and tax.” The chancellor also ordered an immediate multi-year spending review, the first since 2021.