The Chancellor was also seeking to lift economic hopes in her speech to Labour’s conference after warning of tough choices ahead

Rachel Reeves has defended scrapping the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners, saying it was the “right decision” in the circumstances she had inherited.Speaking at the Labour conference, the Chancellor pledged never to “duck those decisions”,

Chancellor says £22bn gap in current spending budget and state pension rise meant she had to make decision on means-testing fuel payments. Early evening summary 18:20 Rachel Reeves has defended her decisions to cut the winter fuel allowance and abandon infrastructure projects as she argued the decisions taken in the early weeks of the Labour government would pave the way to a more optimistic economic future.

Rachel Reeves is set to use her first speech at a Labour conference to vow there will be "no return" to austerity under a Labour government. The chancellor is expected to declare that her first budget, due on October 30, will not be an austerity measure, and instead will “rebuild Britain” and deliver the change they promised the electorate.

Crowd boos winter fuel allowance debate delay ahead of Rachel Reeves’s speech - Reeves says cutting winter fuel allowance to the poorest pensioners was the right decision ahead of keynote speech in Li