{"id":248415,"date":"2026-01-23T20:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248415\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T20:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:41:10","slug":"reform-uk-civil-war-erupts-over-state-pension-triple-lock-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248415\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform UK civil war erupts over state pension triple lock | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Jenrick said he wants the pensions Triple Lock<\/a> to remain in place, even though the benefit could be scrapped by Reform UK<\/a>. The former Tory MP, who defected to Nigel Farage\u2019s party last week, said people deserve \u201cdignity and security\u201d in old age.<\/p>\n

His remarks, during an appearance on our weekday news show the Daily Expresso<\/a>, came on the same day that Mr Farage said the future of the policy is \u201cup for discussion”. Asked about his new leader\u2019s comments by host JJ Anisiobi, the former Cabinet Minister said: “It’s very important to me that people have dignity and security in old age. I’ve got two elderly parents, and I want to make sure that people like them never have to worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: I met Robert Jenrick before Reform defection \u2013 Nigel Farage got one thing wrong <\/a><\/p>\n

\"BRITAIN-POLITICS-REFORM\"<\/p>\n

Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage appear at odds (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

He said that many elderly people are \u201cstruggling\u201d because of rising energy bills at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI represent many of those people. I don’t represent a wealthy part of the country, and there are lots of older people who find the last years of their life tough, and unlike the rest of us, they can’t just go out and do some more hours or try and get a different job or set up a sort of side hustle to make a bit more money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’ve got a fixed income. So I do think it’s very important that we protect them in old age, and that is the role the triple lock<\/a> has played in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed again if he would be in favour of keeping the Triple Lock, he added: \u201cYeah, that has been Reform\u2019s policy, and that’s been my long standing view as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Triple Lock guarantees that the state pension<\/a> rises in line with average earnings, inflation or 2.5% each year.<\/p>\n

It was introduced by the Tory-led Coalition government and has helped ease pensioner poverty in the UK.<\/p>\n

Both Labour and the Conservatives<\/a> have said they are committed to the Triple Lock.<\/p>\n

But Mr Farage, speaking at a Bloomberg interview on Thursday in Davos, said that the Triple Lock, along with every other current government policy, is “up for discussion”.<\/p>\n

\"Dennis<\/p>\n

Dennis Reed of Silver Voices issued a stark warning to Nigel Farage (Image: Daily Star\/Andy Stenning)<\/p>\n

“My main target of cuts is excessive welfare spending,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get the argument of the triple lock [that it’s too dear], it’s something we’ll come to over time.<\/p>\n

“You can’t blame young people for being pretty cheesed off in Britain, because they can’t even aspire to have the thing their parents or grandparents have, and that’s a real, real problem.”<\/p>\n

The Express has campaigned tirelessly to protect the Triple Lock.<\/p>\n

The Office for Budget Responsibility says the triple lock has pushed up the spending on the state pension by \u00a312billion a year, compared to if it had been uprated in line with average earnings.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s ageing population means this is likely to rise significantly from the 2050s onwards.<\/p>\n

Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group, said: “Nigel Farage<\/a> is flirting with dynamite by calling the future of the Triple Lock into question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe votes of the large number of pensioners who currently support Reform UK cannot be taken for granted. Lazy support for the anti-pensioner lobby would see his lead in the polls slide dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said she does not want to scrap the Triple Lock “now” but said “lets see what mess Labour leaves for us”.<\/p>\n

During a previous episode of Expresso, Sir Mel Stride vowed the Conservative Party will \u201cstand by\u201d it.<\/p>\n

But prominent Tory MPs Sir Edward Leigh and Tom Tugendhat have criticised the policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Jenrick said he wants the pensions Triple Lock to remain in place, even though the benefit could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,144721,246,111,139,43776,69,2180,144723,244,245,144722,3453],"class_list":{"0":"post-248415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-daily-expresso","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nigel-farage","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-pension","16":"tag-pensioner-poverty","17":"tag-personal-finance","18":"tag-personalfinance","19":"tag-robert-jenrick","20":"tag-triple-lock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}