Reform UK's Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick has confirmed the party would retain the pensions triple lock if it were to win the next general election, meaning all three major parties have now committed to the policy.
Speaking on the first day of Reform UK's conference in Birmingham, Mr Jenrick told The Telegraph's Allister Heath that he would keep the measure, which guarantees state pensioners a minimum annual increase of 2.5 per cent every April. The other two factors in the triple lock are wage growth, which can exceed four per cent, and consumer prices inflation.
The confirmation comes amid growing criticism of the triple lock, with detractors arguing it contributes to the welfare state's rising bill. The policy was introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010.
All three parties commit to triple lock
Mr Jenrick's announcement means Reform UK, the Labour Party and the Conservatives have all pledged to keep the triple lock. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch previously said: "We created the triple lock and we stand by it."
Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the current MP for Makerfield, also committed to retaining the pledge during a Reddit AMA before succeeding Sir Keir Starmer in July. This leaves no major party currently proposing to scrap the policy.
Asked why he would keep the triple lock, Mr Jenrick said: "Because I don't think in all good conscience I could look a pensioner in the eye who has worked their whole lives, paid into the system and wants dignity and security in the last decades of their life, while there is so much waste elsewhere within the public sector."
Lessons from Liz Truss's mini-Budget
Mr Jenrick, a former Conservative MP who now represents Reform UK, also promised the party would learn from Liz Truss's misfiring mini-Budget in 2022. He said: "You've got to order the things that you can do or else it just wouldn't be credible."
He added: "You have to learn the lessons from what happened with Liz Truss and the mini-Budget where you just basically went into a sweetie shop and took everything off the shelves and stuck it into a Budget. And quite rightly the markets reacted very negatively to that."
Mr Jenrick said his job between now and the general election is to "persuade not just the markets frankly but the whole country... that we'll bring about a big change."
