There’s a growing feeling among younger, left-leaning voters that the older generation has it easy, pocketing fat pensions and sitting on heaps of spare equity in their homes.
Now it’s payback time. Reeves has axed a key pensioner benefit, and worse is to come in October.
The chancellor has been softening up the country for a string of tax hikes in her upcoming autumn Budget, by blaming everything on the useless Tories.
We all knew she was going to pummel us with doomsday warnings about the size of the nation’s fiscal £20billion “black hole”. In case we weren’t suitably impressed, she upped it to £22billion.
Reeves talked of “difficult decisions” and “incredibly tough choices”, while reeling off a string of government projects she was going to cancel.
Then came the low blow.
She started talking about the triple lock, and for a terrible moment, I thought she was going to reverse Labour’s manifesto commitment to protect that.
Thankfully not. She was only softening us for today’s biggest shock. Labour is scrapping the universal Winter Fuel Payment.
This was another “difficult decision”, one that will hit a staggering 10 million pensioners. And nobody saw it coming.
I did briefly wonder whether Reeves might touch the Winter Fuel Payments, when I raised the spectre of Labour means testing the state pension. But I never thought she would.
Scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment is means testing by another name. It was a universal benefit, but now it’s no longer available to all.
Millions will lose up to £600 this winter as a result.
Reeves intoned mournfully that “this is not a decision I wanted to make, nor is it the one that I expected to make”.
Naturally, this wasn’t her fault. None of it was. Those nasty Tories made her do it.
The move is expected to save £1.4billion this year. That’s only a fraction of the £10billion Reeves has just handed millions of public sector workers in her inflation-busting pay hike.
Pensioners loss is the unions gain.
For years, many have complained that better off pensioners are being handed a benefit they don’t need. Yet the change will also hit millions who are barely scraping by.
Only those who claim means tested state pension top-up Pension Credit now qualify.
Pension Credit tops up weekly incomes to £218.15 for single people, or £332.95 for couples. That adds up to £11,343.80 or £17,313.40 a year.
Reeves evidently believes that a single pensioner on a meagre £11,350 a year is too rich to get help with their fuel bills.
Imagine the uproar if a Tory chancellor had done this.
As if that wasn’t enough, she has also axed the planned £86,000 cap on social care costs, in a blow for families with loved ones needing long-term care, while bizarrely claiming she was “outraged” by her own decision.
So what’s next?
We know the Treasury has been working hard to help Reeves decide how to attack the nation’s pensions.
Her new tax advisor, former HMRC head Sir Edward Troup, has been vocal about the need for wealthy “codgers” to pay more tax.
He has called them the “under-taxed generation” and called for the over-75s to lose their “ridiculous” free TV licences. He also wants the state pension means tested, and inheritances taxed to death.
If Reeves is willing to take the axe to the Winter Fuel Allowance, then everything is up for grabs.
She will hold her Autumn Budget and Spending Review on 31 October, when pensioners will no doubt face further tax hikes and benefit cuts.
Many will be trembling in anticipation. But not as much as they’ll be trembling when winter comes and it’s time to put the heating on.
With the Energy Price Cap likely to rise by 10% from October 1, and remain high throughout the winter, Reeves won’t be the only one facing “incredibly tough choices” as winter looms.
Now millions of pensioners will, too. And they won’t be blaming the Tories.
