Liz Truss may abandon pension triple-lock and says ‘difficult decisions’ ahead
Liz Truss could abandon the state pension triple-lock to help plug the fiscal black hole after her disastrous mini-budget, leaving more than 12 million pensioners facing a real-terms cut in their incomes in April.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson refused four times on Tuesday to commit to keeping the pensions guarantee despite it being a key 2019 manifesto commitment and Truss confirming she would stick with it just two weeks ago.
In contrast, Truss has backed off a plan to scrap the government’s commitment to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 – after the defence ministers Ben Wallace and James Heappey threatened to quit.
The prime minister told her cabinet on Tuesday that there would be “difficult decisions” ahead in a 90-minute meeting from which ministers emerged grim-faced, ahead of making tough decisions over where the spending cuts would fall.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has asked all cabinet ministers to come up with plans for departmental cuts to be submitted to the Office for Budget Responsibility as he tries to balance the books ahead of the Halloween fiscal statement.
“We are very aware of how many vulnerable pensioners there are and, indeed, our priority ahead of this fiscal plan will be to ensure we continue to protect the most vulnerable in society,” the spokesperson said.
“The chancellor has been clear, 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.”
Hunt triggered speculation about the fate of the triple-lock, which guarantees that the state pension rises every year by the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5%, when he ruled
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