Middle-class moaners over child benefits are nimbies, says minister David Gauke In an interview with The House, the parliamentary magazine, the Treasury minister said: "I think there's a lot of people who are in favour of reducing the deficit, but then when it's something that affects them there can be a degree of fiscal Nimbyism. The reality is that every section of society is having to make a contribution. We can't pretend that there can be sections of society which we can completely protect from deficit reduction. He added: "We are not trying to engineer a row over this. It's going to have a significant impact for those of us affected but the point we would make is that it is right when we are making difficult decisions, particularly on welfare, that that section of the population, the top 15-10 per cent, make a contribution. Asked how his own family would deal with the loss of the benefit, Mr Gauke said: "Well, I think, we'll just have to cope. Households, I suppose, have to live. We all have to live within our means, just like the country. Mr Gauke also refused to rule out future cuts to benefits such as the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes. The Liberal Democrats have indicated that such benefits could be means-tested in the future - a move that David Cameron has ruled out until at least 2015. Asked in the magazine interview about means-testing pensioner benefits, the Treasury minister said: "What will happen in the future, will happen in the future. I think we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. Mr Gauke also defended the phasing out of the "age-related allowance," which means pensioners start paying tax at a higher income level than workers. The Chancellor announced the move, dubbed the "granny tax," in March, and it will raise an extra £3.3billion from the over-65s over the next four years. Despite the initial controversy, the Treasury minister insisted last night the move was now accepted by pensioners. "Once we kind of got the message over and it had been explained, you know, quite a lot of pensioners took the view that that was reasonable and would expect to make a contribution towards deficit reduction," he said. But I would make those remarks very much specifi-cally related to age-related allowances. He added: "It's a matter of principle. Why should your personal allowance be higher when you're 65 than when you were 64, or, higher still when you're 75?