Alex Armstrong grilled Pat McFadden over Labour’s triple-lock plans, asking why pensioners should bear the burden of funding social care.
The GB News presenter pushed the Work and Pensions Secretary to explain the decision to “punish pensioners” instead of cutting the country’s bloated benefits bill.
“There are many other places you could cut,” Alex began, detailing: “Pip, £41billion: foreign aid, £8.8billion.”
“Why go after pensioners instead of cutting elsewhere?”
Mr McFadden rejected the line of questioning, insisting Labour was keeping its existing commitment to pensioners.
“Well, it’s really important that your viewers know we’re keeping our promise to pensioners,” he said.
“We had said that we would keep the triple lock for the duration of this parliament, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
The Work and Pensions Secretary said the policy would mean the state pension would reach a record level relative to average earnings by the end of Parliament.
Alex Armstrong grilled Pat McFadden over Labour’s triple-lock plans
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GB NEWS
“Now, some people, some commentators, economists and so on out there have said that the triple lock should simply be scrapped,” he said, insisting: “We rejected that.”
However, the minister confirmed Labour intends to introduce what he described as an “adjusted triple lock” in the future.
He explained that under the proposed system, the state pension would continue to rise annually in line with inflation or 2.5 per cent, while also locking in gains made through the existing triple lock.
Mr McFadden said the system would then be “pegged at the right proportion of average earnings going forward”.
The Work and Pensions Secretary insisted the plan would protect pensioners
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GB NEWS
“The gains released from adjusting the triple lock will enable us to have a national care service in the future, dealing with a social care problem, which is a major worry around the country.”
Alex was unimpressed and interrupted: “If I may interject, it’s not answering the question.”
“You’re not answering the question I asked.”
The presenter returned to the scale of Government spending, arguing there were other areas where money could be saved.
Andy Burnham announced the reform plans in his Labour conference speech
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PA
“There’s lots of other ridiculously high costs,” he said.
“So why are you going after such a small saving when you know you’re going to have to cut elsewhere anyway to fund this? It doesn’t make sense to our viewers.”
Mr McFadden rejected the suggestion that the savings would be small, arguing they would grow substantially “year by year”.
“By the end of the next decade, this policy that the Prime Minister announced yesterday will save £15billion a year.”
“This is a long-term policy, and that will enable us, as I say, to invest in social care in a way that I think much of the country has wanted for many years,” he said.
“It’s all a post-2030 plan, though, isn’t it?” Host Ellie Costello jumped in, questioning: “Where was the plan for addressing the problems in the nation right now?”
“We will do whatever we can to help people within, of course, the requirements of keeping the public finances stable, which are the foundation for everything,” the Work and Pensions Secretary shot back.
“But we’ve already set a direction of travel, if you like, and trying to help the public with these cost-of-living issues and where we can do more, we will.”