Rachel Reeves ‘chose to cut winter fuel allowance rather than legalise cannabis’
Rachel Reeves was given the option of legalising cannabis to raise much-needed cash in the aftermath of the 2024 election, according to reports.
The Sunday Times claimed Treasury officials suggested the Chancellor could create a legal market for the drug as a means of raising tax revenue.
Their idea came in July 2024, amid the emergence of the much-discussed ‘£22 billion black hole in the public finances’, the newspaper said.
At the time, Labour was at a loss for how to fill the gap without blowing a manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT.
Reeves ultimately decided to means-test the pensioners’ winter fuel payment, a choice that would go on to generate an enormous backlash from the public.
Officials may have known their suggestion on cannabis was doomed if they had taken a look through their new boss’s past words on the issue.
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According to Buzzfeed, Reeves told students during a 2015 school visit in north-west London she knew people who ‘did really well at GCSEs’ before they started falling back as they ‘started smoking weed and using other drugs’.
The Labour MP told them: ‘Some people say, “Oh, it’s harmless.” It’s not harmless.
‘Some people have friends who have gone off the rails because they have taken drugs, and cannabis then leads to other drugs that are even more harmful.
‘So my advice to all of you is to stay away from that stuff. You’re all doing incredibly well, you’re at a good school, you’ve got your whole lives ahead of you. Don’t risk it by doing stupid things.’
Her party has also lately used the Green Party’s policies on drugs as an attack line, calling them ‘extreme and dangerous’.
Leader Zack Polanski has called for a ‘public health approach’ to the issue, which would include the legalisation of all drugs.
The Treasury has been contacted for comment.
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