Labor vows to rescind Jeremy Hunt's 'pension giveaway for the top 1%'

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Labour has promised to cancel Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's £1bn pension tax, 'gift for the rich', if he wins power in the general election due in 2024.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the party will seek to force a vote in the House of Commons next week on the budget's decision to scrap the retirement allowance at (LTA).

The removal of the so-called 'Doctor Tax' is designed to prevent senior consultants retiring early from the NHS because current pension rules mean it is not worth no need to keep working.

But Ms Reeves said a Labor government would reinstate the lifetime allowance and create a more targeted scheme just for doctors rather than allowing a 'free for all for a few rich people".

But Mr. Hunt accused the Part i Labor for changing its stance on retirement benefits 'overnight' - pointing out that Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting called for it to be abolished in September.

" If you talk to anyone in the NHS they say doctors leaving the workforce because of pension rules is a big deal,” he told Sky News. "It's something - by the way - that Labor advocated last September. Wes Streeting said we should scrap the pension cap."

Mr Streeting said in September that Labor would abolish the 'crazy' cap on doctors' pensions. But it referred specifically to doctors - rather than opening the changes up to all wage earners, as Mr Hunt did. He was 'not claiming that the removing the cap [for doctors] was particularly progressive."

The British Medical Association (BMA) had previously estimated that a targeted removal of the cap on pensions for NHS staff would cost just £32million But the OBR has estimated that Mr Hunt's decision to help all high earners move will cost almost £1billion.

"We could have a tailor-made program for doctors... without spending a billion pounds in ur helping people with over millions of euros in retirement savings - that can't be the right priority," Ms Reeves told Sky News.

Mr. Hunt insisted he was "systematically" removing barriers to work - arguing that the pensions movement could help reduce the amount spent on locum...