Labour conference live: Rachel Reeves stands by winter fuel allowance cut as nurses reject 5.5% pay rise

Rachel Reeves has defended her decision to cut automatic winter fuel payments for pensioners and admitted the move was not backed by everyone.

She said: “We cancelled road and rail projects promised by the Conservatives, which they did not budget for.

“And I made the choice to means test the winter fuel payment so that it’s only targeted to those most in need.

“I know that not everyone in this hall or in the country will agree with every decision that I make. I will not duck those decisions for political expediency, not for personal advantage.”

Rachel Reeves has used her keynote speech to attack former prime minister’s Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.

She told the crowd: “The British capacity for inventiveness, enterprise and old-fashioned hard work has not gone away.

“So believe me when I say my optimism about Britain is brighter than ever.

“My ambition knows no limits because I can see that, provided that we make the right choices now, stability is a crucial foundation on which all of our ambitions will be built, the essential precondition for business to invest with confidence and for families to plan for the future.”

The chancellor added: “The Liz Truss experiment showed us that any plan for growth without stability leads to ruin.”

The chancellor has said she believes her optimism for Britain ‘burns brighter than ever” with her plan to boost economic growth.

Rachel Reeves told Labour’s conference: “I believe in a better Britain, a Britain of opportunity, fairness and enterprise.

“I know that country has sometimes felt far off in recent years as our growth, our productivity and family finances all behind.

“But it doesn’t have to be that way. The British capacity for inventiveness, enterprise, often hard work, has not gone away.

“Believe me when I say, my optimism for Britain burns brighter than ever. My ambition knows no limits, because I can deceases if we make the right choices now... Growth is the challenge and investment is the solution.”

Rachel Reeves has defended her plan to increase VAT on private schools, hailing the decision as part of the “Britain I believe in”.

She told the conference: “We said we would not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.

“And we will cap corporation tax at its current level for the duration of this parliament.

“Conference, as promised, we will extend the energy profit levy on oil and gas producers to invest in homegrown energy here in Britain.

“We will end the non-dom tax loopholes, and we will crack down on tax avoidance and tax evasion. That is the difference our Labour government will make.”

The chancellor has promised there will be “no austerity” ahead of the first Budget of the Labour government.

Rachel Reeves said: “Next month I will deliver the first Budget of this Labour government.

“And because I know how much damage has been done in those 14 years, let me say one thing straight up. There will be no return to austerity.

“Yes, we must deal with the Tory legacy and that means tough decisions but I won’t let that dim our ambition for Britain.

“So real ambition, a budget to fix the foundations, a budget to deliver the change that we promised a budget to rebuild, Britain, and my budget will keep our manifesto commitment. Every choice we make will be within a framework of economic and fiscal stability. You’d expect nothing less.”

In her speech Rachel Reeves also doubled down on her controversial winter fuel cuts, Kate Devlin writes from the Labour conference.

She suggested that not everything she did in government would be popular within Labour and in the wider country.

But she added: “I will not duck those decisions”.

The chancellor has announced Labour will appoint a Covid corruption commissioner to investigate the “carnival of waste and fraud” that took place during the pandemic during the Conservative government.

She told the conference: “Billions of pounds of public money handed out to friends and donors of the Conservative Party. Billions more defrauded from the taxpayer.”

Rachel Reeves added: “We inherited a recommendation from the previous government that any attempt to reclaim that money should be abandoned. The Tories simply did not care. But Labour will not stand for it.”

“I have put a block on any contract being abandoned or waived until it has been independently assessed by that commissioner.

“I won’t turn a blind eye to rip-off artists and fraudsters, who used a national emergency to line their own pockets.”

Rachel Reeves has accused the Conservative party of promising solutions that “could never be paid for, roads that would never be built”.

She added: “Public transport that would never arrive, hospitals that would never treat a single patient.

“They showed no regarding people and they did not care about the consequences.

“It was made clear to me that failure to act swiftly could undermine the UK’s fiscal position, with implications for public debt, mortgages and prices, and so I took action to make the in-year savings necessary.”

Rachel Reeves has promised voters to show an “iron discipline” as chancellor.

She said: “Now I know that you are impatient for change. I am too.”

But she warned: “Because of that legacy left by the Conservatives, the road ahead is steeper and harder than expected.

“You don’t need to take my word for it. Figures released only on Friday showed another month of record borrowing, debt at 100 per cent of GDP. That is the inheritance they left in black and white.”