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<\/p>\nAngela Rayner refused to commit to Labour keeping the state pensions triple lock if the party takes power at the next general election.<\/p>\n
The deputy Labour leader insisted the opposition would not make unfunded spending commitments due to the state of the economy.<\/p>\n
Under the triple lock, the state pension rises each year in line with the highest out of 2.5 per cent, wage rises or inflation.<\/p>\n
It is expected to go up by 8.5 percent next April based on average earning figures released today.<\/p>\n
Asked on BBC Breakfast if she backs the hike, the shadow deputy prime minister and levelling up secretary said: “The Tories promised that they would keep the triple lock. They’ve got to keep to that, they’re in government.<\/p>\n
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“When we’re in government, when we run up to the general election, when we’ve seen the finances, we will make sure that people are better off under Labour.<\/p>\n
“We will not make spending commitments when we don’t know what the circumstances are.<\/p>\n
“But the last Labour government took over a million pensioners out of poverty and the next Labour government will ensure that pensioners and children and everyone in the UK can get on.<\/p>\n
“But we won’t do that if we’ve got stagnation and we don’t have a growth strategy like this government has failed to do at the moment.”<\/p>\n
When it was put to her that Labour also pledged to keep the triple lock in 2019, she insisted the country is in “a very different place”.<\/p>\n
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP said: “What Labour has said is we’ll look at that in the run-up to a general election but we will not make unfunded spending commitments because Liz Truss did that and she crashed the economy.<\/p>\n
“She made unfunded tax cuts and it crashed our economy and working people paid the price of that.<\/p>\n
“The Labour Party will secure our economy, grow the economy and have a real industrial strategy that means people can get on in life and businesses that want to invest in the UK can have the confidence to do so.”<\/p>\n
Asked again if Labour is committed to keeping the triple lock, she said the party will “have to see where we are when we get to a general election and see the finances”.<\/p>\n
She added: “We will not make unfunded spending commitments.<\/p>\n
“But the last Labour government raised millions of pensioners and children out of poverty. We’re now seeing after 13 years of the Conservatives, pensioners’ living standards going back, children in poverty again. We’ve got to reverse that and we know that’s the mission of the next Labour government.<\/p>\n
“But we will not do it if we make unfunded spending commitments so we will set out our spending plans come the general election and then the people can decide who they think is best to run the economy.”<\/p>\n
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