I won’t means-test pension triple lock, says Badenoch
Tories accuse Labour of spreading ‘fake news’ and insisting they ‘have always protected’ the guarantee
Kemi Badenoch has said she will not
means-test the pension triple lock, with the Tories saying reports suggesting she would consider the change were “fake news”.
The Tory leader clarified her position on an LBC phone-in, during which she was asked if she would look at stripping the wealthiest retirees
of the guarantee.
A listener asked Mrs Badenoch whether she would consider “looking at” pensioners who have
the triple lock but do not need it.
She responded that redistributing funds from those who “do not need” them was “exactly the sort of thing” the Conservatives would look at, prompting confusion over whether she would consider means-testing the triple lock.
Labour leapt on the comments on Thursday night, with a Treasury source telling The Telegraph: “Kemi Badenoch finally has her first policy – a cut to the state pension.” But the Tories hit back, accusing Labour of spreading “fake news”.
The triple lock, introduced by the Conservatives under Lord Cameron, ensures that the state pension increases by whichever is highest out of inflation, average wage rises and 2.5 per cent, and applies to everyone with a state pension.
During the phone-in, a listener put it to Mrs Badenoch that “there are some people that get the pension or get the triple lock applied to it who do not need it” and asked: “Shouldn’t we look at that and perhaps using that money to help build more houses or help young people to become homeowners?”
The Tory leader replied: “So that’s exactly the sort of thing that the policy work we’re going to be doing will look at. I have always said that we don’t do means-testing…” She was then interrupted by Iain Dale, the LBC host, who said: “So you’re actually going to look at the triple lock?”
Mrs Badenoch responded: “No, we’re going to look at means-testing. Means testing is something which we don’t do properly here. I’m someone who always said, for example, that millionaires should not be getting the winter fuel payment.
It is understood that the Tory leader was proposing to means-test the winter fuel payment, not the pensions triple lock. She has accused
Labour of going too far by stripping all but the poorest pensioners of the benefit.
During the LBC show, Mrs Badenoch said that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, had taken means-testing “to the extreme” where “people who are actually on the breadline have had
their winter fuel payment taken away”.
She continued: “We don’t have a system that knows who should get what. That’s the sort of thing that we need to be looking at. Now, the triple lock is a policy which we supported throughout our 14 years in government. That was a Conservative policy, but we need to make sure that we are growing.”
An ally of Mrs Badenoch said: “Kemi literally said yesterday she is going to take her time building policy, and she wants to look at everything – means-testing, tuition fees, immigration and so on.
“The fact that Labour are rushing out fake press releases to pretend that these are policies rather than debates we need and must have shows Starmer and Reeves are the old, dishonest politics and they’re already out of ideas.”
Asked about Mrs Badenoch’s triple lock comments on Friday morning, Nigel Huddleston, the Conservative Party co-chairman, said: “I think you have been reading too many Labour Party press releases there. What Kemi said yesterday in answer to the triple lock, are you going to get rid of the triple lock, the first word out of her mouth was ‘no’.”
A Tory source said the party had no plans to touch the state pension or the triple lock but would look at means-testing more generally.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Tories wrote: “On a day where Kemi said it was time to tell the truth, the Labour Party is skewing her words for political gain and lying about what she said. We will look at means-testing. But the Conservatives have always protected the triple lock. Ignore the fake news!”
Labour doubled down on its claims on Friday, with spokesman saying: “Kemi Badenoch and her Tory party chair have let the mask slip: they’d cut your state pension. The Conservatives are still in chaos, announcing policies on the hoof that would mean a raid on pension pots.
“Meanwhile the Labour Government has taken tough action to clean up the Tories’ economic mess, meaning we can guarantee a £470 cash boost for pensions in April.”
