Dawn Neesom has accused Labour of “hating old people” with Rachel Reeves thought to be considering a multibillion-pound raid on private pensions to fund the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap.
The Chancellor is allegedly drawing up plans for a fresh hit on the middle-class by scaling back, or potentially scrapping, the salary-sacrifice pension system used by millions of private-sector workers.
The move is designed to raise up to £4billion to help finance Labour MPs’ demands to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
Speaking on GB News, Dawn fumed: “I mean, the ridiculous situation with this Budget which we’re all facing on Wednesday.
“This is one you’re definitely going to watch from behind the sofa, it’s going to be so scary. Rather than Labour being the party for growth and the party for change and for working people they seem to making it better for you to not work, to stay at home, to have loads of kids.”
“That’s going to be better financially than actually going out to work and doing a day’s graft. I do not understand where this party is coming from on many, many of their policies.”
Fellow panellist Christopher Biggins said: “I agree. As far as pensioners are concerned I mean, I think what would be best actually for all of us is if we got rid of us.
“I’m a pensioner and I think at a certain age you just get rid of us all, because all they want to do is attack us all the time and say ‘oh, you’ve got a house, it’s worth much more than when you bought it.
Dawn Neesom fumed that Labour ‘hates old people’
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GB NEWS
“You worked hard, you fought, you saved up, we’re going to take as much of it as we possibly can.’ It’s appalling.”
Dawn said: “And everything, we’ve been saving for our old age to make it actually acceptable and have a fun time.
“No, this Government wants to take everything from us. What they’re doing to the Labour voters, I think, is appalling.
“But didn’t the old-school Labour Party my dad used to be a member of – he used to be a union representative from the old-school Labour Party – wasn’t it for working people?
“To encourage you to actually work, to do better for yourself, to improve your lot. That is what they were about. And then Margaret Thatcher did that as well.
“Pensioners to lose £800 a year. I really do think this Labour Party hate old people. They do.”
At present, employees agree to take a lower monthly wage while their employer redirects the difference into their pension, cutting National Insurance contributions for both.
Despite the system being created to boost long-term saving, at a cost of £4billion a year, the Treasury has now set its sights on it.
Mrs Reeves had previously floated a £2,000 cap on how much salary could be sacrificed.
But Treasury insiders are now hunting for £3billion to £4billion in savings, meaning far deeper curbs, or even the total scrapping of the scheme, are now under serious consideration.
Labour’s manifesto promised that taxes on working people would not rise, and last November Mrs Reeves assured the CBI that she had no intention of returning “with more borrowing or more taxes”.
Yet with a funding shortfall believed to run into the tens of billions, Wednesday’s Budget is shaping up to be a costly attempt to convince the markets that Britain is not sliding towards a financial crisis.