Liz Truss no longer standing by pension triple lock commitment
Liz Truss is no longer standing by her commitment to increase state pensions in line with soaring inflation as her imperilled leadership is overhauled by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
Downing Street indicated ministers could ditch their commitment to the triple lock as the new Chancellor brought in to save her ailing leadership searches to plug a multi-billion pound black hole.
Mr Hunt told colleagues at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that they must find savings from their departmental budgets.
As recently as October 2 Ms Truss was clear state pensions would increase in April by whichever is highest – 2.5%, wages or inflation.
“I’ve committed to the triple lock. Yes,” she said in a BBC interview.
But, after replacing Kwasi Kwarteng in the Treasury after their disastrous mini-budget, Downing Street backed down on this pledge.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We are very aware of how many vulnerable pensioners there are and indeed our priority ahead of this fiscal plan is we continue to protect the most vulnerable in society.
“The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are not making any commitments on individual policy areas at this point, but as I say the decisions will be made through the prism of what matters most to the most vulnerable.”
The spokesman did, however, stand by the commitment of increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030.
In the Commons on Monday, Mr Hunt did not rule out the triple lock being suspended as he refused to make any commitments on “individual policy areas”.
Around 12.5 million people who receive the state pension could be dealt a real-terms cut in earnings if their payments do not rise in line with inflation, standing at around 10%.
On Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics will publish the Consumer Price Index measure of inflation, on which changes to benefits and pension payments are calculated.
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The triple lock was set aside due to the statistical anomalies that arose during the series of Covid crises. Fair enough. However I’m not so cheerful about giving up a slice of my pension this time round although I will come to terms with it because that is the grim reality of the situation. This crisis, a far bigger mess, is down to the UK Gov’s mismanagement of the situation largely driven by the war in Ukraine but deeply embedded by its wishy washy approach to energy supply side. Why any segment of our communities has to pay a savage… Read more »
Can’t anyone in the tory party see that this woman is an infiltrator and has only one thing in mind and that is to totally destroy the Conservative party by making it look totally incompetent. So far she is doing a fantastic job of it and hope she succeeds, lol.
The UK state pension is amongst the lowest in western Europe and the Tories still think it is too much. How much longer are the people of Wales going to passively stand by and wait for a UK government to actively engage in a social justice agenda that we in Wales have voted for for the last 100 years. Lets do something about it and jump in the Welsh Independence lifeboat and sail away from the Tory scum.
It is clear that truss is a “Puppet” prime minister only there to try to fool the populace that the CONservative party is behind her and she is in charge,well,It’s certainly not working but there again they vote for clowns they get a circus