Reeves urges Labor members to support tough decisions Achi-News

However, members are about to discuss the decision to conduct a means test on the annual payment.

Unite and the Communications Workers’ Union have put forward calls for the policy change to be reversed.

Pensioners affected by the cut will stage a protest outside the conference in Liverpool this afternoon.

The Chancellor announced that he would limit the annual payment in England and Wales to those on pension credit or other specified benefits as part of his plan to tackle a £22 billion black hole.

According to ministers in Edinburgh that left them with a £160 million deficit, forcing them to follow suit.

Scottish Government analysis says that means around 900,000 Scottish pensioners will lose out, with only 130,000 receiving the payment.

Across the UK, around 10 million pensioners will be affected.

In her speech, the Chancellor is expected to say: “Conservative austerity was a devastating choice for our public services – and for investment and growth too.

She is expected to add: “We have to deal with the Tory legacy and that means tough decisions. But we will not let that reduce our ambition for Britain.

“So it will be a budget with real ambition. Budget to lay the foundations. A budget to deliver the change we promised. A budget to rebuild Britain.”

In a sign of Labor keeping its manifesto commitments, Ms Reeves will promise not to raise national insurance, income tax and VAT.

She will also say that corporation tax will remain at its “current level throughout this Parliament”.

Unite has already unveiled billboards around Liverpool with the slogan “Protect the winter fuel payment.”

The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “The government’s winter fuel policy needs to be reversed.

“Targeting everyday people without much money is not a difficult choice – it is a mistake. There is no reason why we have to choose between paying workers and keeping pensioners warm.”

Maggie Roberts, Vice Chair of Unite Retired Members, said: “Pensioners on as little as £220 a week will miss out on the winter fuel payment this year.

“This is not a policy that takes from the rich to give to the poor. This is a policy that takes from pensioners to pay for a crisis that is not ours.

“My constituency, Weston-Super-Mare voted as a Labor MP for the first time ever this year. We have many pensioners living here. I know many of them will not vote Labor again. The government reverses its decision on winter fuel.”

The SNP leader in Westminster, Stephen Flynn, said the Chancellor needed to “put the ax down.”

He said: “Rachel Reeves is repeating the mistakes of the Tories by imposing damaging austerity cuts, which will starve the economy of investment and make things worse for families and public services.

“Fourteen years of Tory cuts proved beyond doubt that austerity does not work. Instead of ‘laying the foundations’ they weakened them – reducing economic growth, squeezing wages, damaging public services and pushing families into poverty.

“No wonder Labor is plummeting in the polls, when it has broken promises to voters and imposed billions of pounds of cuts, which economists warn will hit growth.”

The Conservatives’ finance spokeswoman in Scotland, Liz Smith MSP, said: “Labour is being stupid when it comes to the economy.

“This is all because there has been a huge backlash over their decision to betray pensioners by scrapping universal winter fuel payments.

“No one will be fooled by the Chancellor when she is surprised by the difficult financial choices she faces, just as no one in Scotland is fooled by the SNP repeatedly trying blame Westminster for all the problems in the Scottish economy.

“Despite receiving record block grants from Westminster and imposing the highest taxes in the UK, the SNP have run our public services into the ground and created a huge black hole in Scotland’s finances.”