Truss commits to pension spending, but silent on benefits, foreign aid

BRITISH Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Wednesday (Oct 19) she was committed to increasing state pension payments in line with the level of inflation, but declined to give the same reassurance for welfare payments and foreign aid.

Truss has been forced to hunt for deep spending cuts after the prime minister’s now-scrapped economic programme shattered investor confidence in Britain’s government and sent borrowing costs surging.

Truss’s new finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, dismantled Truss’s economic policy on Monday, and said then that he could not commit to raising state retirement payments in line with inflation in April as had been expected.

Asked if Truss had ditched the policy, known as the triple lock which guarantees that state pension rises every year in line with inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent – whichever is highest, she told the House of Commons on Wednesday she remained fully committed to it.

“We have been clear in our manifesto that we will maintain the triple lock, and I am completely committed to it, so is the chancellor (finance minister),” she told Parliament.

Truss’s spokesman said that she had discussed the issue with Hunt and agreed on an approach with him before she reiterated the commitment to the triple lock.

“She wanted to provide that reassurance,” Truss’s spokesman told reporters.

The Resolution Foundation think tank has said indexing the state pension to average earnings rather than inflation would save the government roughly US$6.74 billion in each of the next two financial years.

Asked if the same reassurance could be given for welfare benefit payments, Truss said the country had helped the poorest by providing energy subsidies and that it would always help the most vulnerable.

SEE ALSO

Hunt’s economic plan sends UK back on the road to austerity

Asked about the country’s foreign aid budget, Truss said more details would be set out in due course.

Britain cut a long-standing policy of spending 0.7 per cent of economic output on foreign aid during the coronavirus pandemic, reducing it to 0.5 per cent. REUTERS