Reform UK is not yet committed to keeping the triple lock on pensions if it wins power, Nigel Farage has said, despite the party’s new Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, saying he was a “supporter” of the policy.
Jenrick told a press conference in London that he backed the triple lock, which raises pension payments by inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the government’s fiscal watchdog, estimated in July last year that the triple lock would cost £15.5 billion a year by 2029-30.
Jenrick making his first speech as Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
“I’ve always been a supporter of the triple lock. It’s incredibly important to provide dignity and security to older people on fixed incomes in the last decades of their life, particularly at a time like this where there’s such challenging circumstances with the cost of living,” Jenrick said.
But shortly afterwards Farage appeared to question whether the policy would form part of Reform’s election manifesto, saying it was still “open for debate”. Farage has consistently refused to commit to keeping the pensions triple lock if he got into power.
Asked if he had changed his mind, he replied: “No, I haven’t changed my mind. It’s open for debate. Everything is open for debate.”
The apparent split came as Jenrick announced that a future Reform government would reimpose the two-child benefit cap and end mental health payments for people who did not have a clinical diagnosis.
Jenrick said the party would oversee a major clampdown on the welfare system to “defuse the benefits bomb set to bankrupt Britain”.
Setting out Reform’s new economic agenda, Jenrick said: “As a signal of intent, today, Reform is changing our policy on the two-child cap for universal credit. The policy was well-meaning. We want to help working families have more children. But right now, we just cannot afford to do so with welfare. So it has to go. And as Reform’s shadow chancellor, I’m ending it.
“A Reform government will restore the cap in full. We are the party of alarm-clock Britain, a party for workers and not welfare.”
Watch: Jenrick also made pledges on the independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England
Farage had previously supported scrapping the two-child benefit cap, but said today that he had changed his mind after he was accused of being a socialist.
“What I wanted was the two-child cap lifted for working British families. And for my efforts, I got branded even by the Tory press as being a socialist,” Farage said.
“It backfired, it didn’t work. Any attempt to do anything pro-family seemed to be very, very difficult to do. And anyway it was only going to cost a tiny amount of money compared to the up to £3 billion that this Labour Party has changed [by lifting the cap entirely]. So look, I accept it, it’s fine.”