The Chancellor has sparked fury over reports she will not renew the £2 bus fare cap.
Rachel Reeves is facing a major backlash over plans to axe a £2 cap on bus fares in this week’s Budget.
The Chancellor is not expected the renew the measure when it expires at the end of the year.
But shadow work and pension secretary Mel Stride said it would be “yet another slap in the face” for pensioners after winter fuel payment cuts.
The senior Tory told The Sun: “Labour’s scrapping of Winter Fuel Payments was an outright betrayal of their promise to protect our elderly, and now it looks like they are gearing up to betray them again by taking away their bus £2 cap – once again picking the pockets of some of our most vulnerable to fuel their profligacy.
“Be in no doubt, pensioners will never forgive Labour for this.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Image: Getty)
Critics also warned of the impact on workers who rely on buses and young people.
Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said: “If Labour knew what a working person is they’d know that more often than not they catch the bus to work.
“They’re hiking fares for working people to fund pay rises for train drivers and send foreign aid to adversaries.
“This Government is on the side of everyone but our own people.”
Tory MP Richard Holden, a former transport minister, told the Daily Mail: “Labour are going to hammer car and van drivers, now they’ve revealed they’re going to cripple bus users, too – often younger people and lower paid workers who use buses ten times more than trains.
“This is another shameful and cowardly Labour tax on working people, deliberately targeting those who have no other choice.”
Analysis by the Department for Transport, reported by The Times, found that that cap, which costs the Treasry £350 million a year, was “not financially sustainable for taxpayers and bus operators”.
Officials believe that it generates only 71p to 90p in benefits for every £1 spent to support the cap.
But polling by the More in Common think tank found 55% think ditching it is the wrong decision, compared to just 28% who back the move.
But according to polling by More In Common, 55 per cent of the public think scrapping it is ‘the wrong decision’, compared to just 28 per cent who think it’s the right move.
It comes as the Chancellor is looking to make up to £40 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts in her Budget on Wednesday.
She blamed a £22 billion black hole in the public finances left by the previous government for her controversial winter fuel payments decision, which the Tories have disputed.
