BETTER-OFF pensioners should lose benefits such as winter fuel payments, as well as free prescriptions, bus travel and TV licences, a key ally of David Cameron will say today.
Backbencher Nick Boles will insist, in a speech to think-tank the Resolution Foundation, that the millions saved could be used to help working people.
It will be seen as a kite-flying exercise ahead of the writing of the Conservatives' next election manifesto, given it has already been estimated the next Government will have to find an extra £10 billion in welfare savings.
Mr Boles will say: "If we are to achieve stability in our public finances and make crucial investments in improving productivity and competitiveness, we must find further savings from the welfare budget.
"If we are going to protect spending on pensions ... equity between the generations requires these cuts cannot only fall on adults of working age. We need to acknowledge now we will not be able to continue the protection of these other benefits for better-off pensioners after 2015."
Mr Boles will say tackling the "living standards crisis in an era of prolonged austerity" will involve the Chancellor only allowing public spending growth on programmes that have an impact on the productivity of working people.
New public spending commitments should be ruled out unless they can be funded entirely by diverting spending from other existing programmes, he will argue.
Challenging Labour to set out which taxes would have to rise to pay for its increased spending plans, the Conservative backbencher will add: "The Coalition is going to be confronted with some very hard choices on public spending; in government the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have shown we are willing and able to grit our teeth and take unpopular decisions in what we believe is the national interest."
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