Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been blasted after it emerged she billed the taxpayer thousands for her own energy bills, before announcing the decision to slash pensioners’ Winter Fuel Allowance.

In the past five years alone, Ms Reeves claimed £3,700 towards her energy bills, on top of her £91,346 salary and other housing expenses.

This sum is 2.5 higher than how much a pensioner could have received over the same period in Winter fuel.

Across her whole expenses history, this rises to £4,400, with demands now emerging she pay back the cash.

Analysis by the Telegraph, published today, further reveals that in the same half-decade period, Labour MPs claimed more than £425,000 from the taxpayer in order to heat their second homes.

Rachel Reeves is facing calls to pay the money back (Image: Getty)

Some of these claims are thousands a year more than a typical household’s spend.

The paper suggests that the £425,000 is a whopping £83,000 more than the average amount spent on heating by a similar number of households over the same period.

MPs are entitled to claim accommodation costs on expenses, provided they are renting the home and it is not one they own.

The total cap for housing costs is £29,290 in London, and £19,940, which must cover their rent and heating costs.

This afternoon, Labour MPs voted en masse to back plans to strip pensioners earning as little as £11,343 of their £300 annual Winter Fuel Allowance, while they are still able to claim thousands to help themselves.

Liz Kendall, who headed up today’s ferocious Commons debate on the Government policy, has claimed an even higher sum than the Chancellor has over the last five years, at £5,700.

Liz Kendal claimed over £5,000 across five years (Image: Getty)

This would be enough to pay the Winter Fuel payments of a whopping 19 pensioners this Christmas.

Senior Labour MP Liam Byrne also takes the crown for the highest energy expenses of any MP over the past five years, at an eye-watering £18,400.

Mr Byrne told the Telegraph this was because the energy “supplier hugely overcharged and is now in the process of drawing down the very large credit balance we have with them”.

Meanwhile Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi billed taxpayers for £11,800 over the period, and Naz Shah claimed £10,300.

These figures are even more astonishing given MPs typically live in two properties, one in London and a second in their constituency, and therefore the energy bill spend does not represent full-time usage.

The revelations were met with fury on social media this afternoon, with writer and columnist Gareth Roberts asking: “How can they not have realised somebody would notice this?”

X user BreakTheSilence fumed: “She made sure she took care of herself first didn’t she?”

While Christian Cawley blasted: “Make them all pay it back.”

Simon Francis, of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition charity group, said: “As MPs warm themselves at the public expense, the reality for pensioners will be very different this winter.

“If Labour MPs are so keen to save money for the Treasury, maybe they could look closer to home for savings rather than taking from pensioners in need?”

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers are tired of taking lectures from politicians unable to practice what they preach.

“Failed policies have driven up energy prices to levels that families are struggling to meet, yet MPs are insulated from the soaring costs. Our representatives should remember their voters when deciding policies.”