Chancellor also strikes optimistic note at party conference, promising opportunity, fairness and enterprise

• Labour conference live – latest updates

Rachel Reeves has defended her decisions to cut 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.

Giving her first speech to Labour conference as chancellor, Reeves insisted that she had been forced to make unpopular cuts because of the economic inheritance left by the last Conservative government.