Keep your hands off our ISAs, Chancellor, it’s not your money to spend - Andrew Vine

And that’s why all of us will be furious if, as seems likely, the Chancellor tinkers with ISAs in her budget next month in an attempt to rectify the mess the public finances are in, at least partially because of her own mismanagement of the economy and certainly due to government cowardice over tackling a spiralling benefits bill.

Increasingly, it is being reported that the annual amount allowed to be invested in an ISA will be halved to £10,000.

While most of us can only dream of being able to save £10,000 a year – let alone the £20,000 currently permitted – any such change represents an attack on saving, on prudence and on the importance generations of responsible working people have attached to putting money aside to cushion themselves against the unexpected.

This tradition of saving for a rainy day has especially deep roots here in the north. Putting a bit by is in the DNA of Yorkshire residents who traditionally worked hard for their money and wanted to hang on to as much of it as possible.

That mentality has only grown in importance as increasing numbers of older people need to rely on interest from their savings to supplement pensions relentlessly eroded by inflation.

ISAs have been arguably Britain’s most spectacularly successful and popular savings accounts since their introduction more than 25 years ago – by a Labour government, let’s not forget, that was notably more skilled at running the country and infinitely better attuned to the nation than its current successor.

By incentivising people to save without paying tax on the interest, ISAs encouraged them to put away whatever they could afford on a regular basis.

They helped people to help themselves, to plan for their own futures and financial security.

They also helped the country and the young hoping to own a home by generating funds lent in mortgages. There is no downside to ISAs. They benefit everyone.

That explains the opposition of banks and building societies to any mucking about with ISAs. They have warned it could diminish the pot of money available for mortgages, making it even more difficult for people to buy a home.

Whether Rachel Reeves heeds such warnings remains to be seen, but if she does go ahead with changing the rules on ISAs, it will add savers to a lengthening list of groups aggrieved at being targeted as cash cows to fund unaffordable public spending.

The list already includes business people who have been fleeced for increased national insurance contributions and wage costs, farmers facing ruin from inheritance tax bills, rural residents opposing inappropriate development and parents who find themselves penalised for daring to choose a private education for their children.

Even given the justifiable grievances of all those groups, any attack on people’s aspiration to save is another matter entirely.

It feels like picking their pockets after they have dutifully stumped up income tax, national insurance and VAT on most things they buy, a snatching of what little they have left over and want to save.

What is especially galling is that the Chancellor appears to be ready to target the hard-working and prudent in order to continue funding those who either flatly refuse to work or claim to be unable to earn a living.

The single biggest problem for the government in attempting to balance Britain’s books is the out-of-control benefits bill, which by the end of this decade is forecast to cost £100bn a year.

Yet ministers have shown a total lack of guts in failing to stem this ever-worsening drain on the country’s resources in which more than nine million people are already living on benefits.

Tackling that, not targeting those who work for an honest living and save what they can, should be the government’s priority.

Keep your hands off our savings, Chancellor. It’s not your money to spend.