Labour's plans to stop pensioner's winter fuel handouts
ED Balls will confirm today that Labour wants to strip winter fuel payments from hundreds of thousands of pensioners.
The Shadow Chancellor will use his Brighton conference speech to warn that a Labour government would introduce means testing to stop the better off benefiting.
He is bound to infuriate groups campaigning to save universal benefits for retired people.
Mr Balls was due to say: “We cannot continue paying the allowance to the richest five per cent.”
The measure would hit pensioners who pay income tax at the higher rate of 40 per cent or more. More than 600,000 would lose up to £300.
He will say that if Labour wins the next general election in 2015, ministers will face a £90billion Budget deficit and tough spending restrictions.