Britons love their Cash ISAs – and we have the figures to prove it. A clear majority oppose a sharp cut to the £20,000 Cash ISA allowance, with older savers most alarmed.

Reeves targets them at her own risk.

Three in four savers age 55 and over oppose the Cash ISA allowance being cut, new research from Nottingham Building Society shows.

That’s hardly surprising, given that more than half of all pensioners have a Cash ISA as part of their nest egg.

Younger savers love Cash ISAs too, the research shows. Four in 10 aged between 25 and 34 say Reeves’s plot will make it even harder for them to build a deposit for their first home.

Among all savers, one in three say this will hit their ability to save towards retirement or build an emergency pot of cash for a rainy day.

Yet the Chancellor still looks set to defy public opinion and scale back the Cash ISA allowance from £20,000 to just £4,000, a brutal 80% cut.

She’s expected to announce the move in her Spring Statement on March 26. That’s exactly three weeks away.

The Nottingham’s chief savings officer Harriet Guevara said Cash ISAs are an essential tool that allow millions to build a financial safety net or save for key life moments such as property deposit or retirement. “With both economic uncertainty and Cash ISA appetite high, cutting would be the wrong step at the wrong time.”

City investment managers are pushing Reeves to cut the Cash ISA allowance, to encourage savers to invest in Stocks and Shares ISAs instead.

They claim this will drive investment in UK businesses but Guevara warned: “Limiting how much people can put into a Cash ISA won’t immediately lead to a rush into shares.”

As I wrote yesterday, this could force Rachel Reeves to go a step further, by restricting the Stocks and Shares ISA allowance to UK shares only.

In a cruel irony, the threat comes at a time when Cash ISAs are more popular than they’ve been in years.

Savers tucked away a staggering £45billion last year, up 14% in a year. They now hold a massive of £359billion in Cash ISAs in total, according to Paragon Bank.

By contrast, the sums going into non-ISA savings accounts rose just 2.4% to £19billion last year.

Paragon’s managing director of savings Derek Sprawling said higher savings rates mean that savers pay more tax on non-ISA deposits. “That’s driven a shift back towards Cash ISAs which we expect to continue.”

That could quickly reverse if Reeves turns her ire on Cash ISAs.

The Chancellor claims to be doing this to encourage investing but mostly she wants savers to pay more tax.

Treasury figures show savers will pay £10.3billion in tax on non-ISA savings in the 2024/25 tax year.

That’s a staggering increase of 665% from £1.4billion just three years ago.

By forcing more savers into non-ISA deposit accounts, Reeves could raise billions a year. She may find this too difficult to resist.

This year’s so-called ISA season is rapidly drawing to a close, with a deadline of midnight on April 5.

Cash ISA savers are rushing to make use of their £20k allowance while they still can, said Mark Hicks, head of active savings at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Demand is up given the rumours around cuts.”

As Reeves hovers, savers have no time to lose.