A Tory shadow minister has suggested older people with savings could lose the state pension in Britain through the introduction of means-testing.
Richard Fuller, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, pointed to Australia’s state pension system where how much you get depends on your income and assets.
He highlighted how the UK has almost £4trillion in state pension liabilities, which is more than the total size of the British economy at £2.5trillion.
The North Bedfordshire MP suggested Britain could restrict the state pension ‘for those who haven’t got their savings through their own retirement account’.
He told a fringe event at the Conservative conference in Manchester on Monday: ‘Thirty years ago, Australia looked at demographic changes.
‘And they decided to move towards a scheme that is more akin to putting money aside for your savings… essentially the state pension is means-tested.
‘This is a more secure, more guaranteed state pension for people. The difficulty is the transition costs… so [there’s] more work to do on that.’
Mr Fuller acknowledged the idea was not Tory policy and that he was only ‘interested in numbers and the way in which some of these problems happen’.
Richard Fuller, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, pointed to Australia’s state pension system where how much you get depends on your income and assets
‘This is not something that is Conservative Party policy,’ Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told Times Radio when quizzed about Mr Fuller’s comments
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday stressed her party would not look to means-test the UK’s state pension.
‘This is not something that is Conservative Party policy,’ she told Times Radio when quizzed about Mr Fuller’s comments.
‘Why did he say that? Because we have free debate. We’re not a Stalinist party. I believe that we should hear what everyone has to say.
‘But just because people are expressing opinions doesn’t mean that they are party policy.’
Mrs Badenoch also reiterated the Tories’ commitment to the pension triple lock, despite some within her party expressing fears the ‘unsustainable’ policy is piling pressure on the public finances.
The triple lock sees the state pension rise each April in line with whichever is highest out of average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5 per cent.
‘The pension triple lock is a Conservative policy,’ Mrs Badenoch said.
‘It is one we stand by because we believe that people who have contributed, those who pay in, should get something out. So that is a principle that we believe in.’
She added: ‘It is our policy. We brought it in. We haven’t always had a pension triple lock in this country.
‘But the acute problem we have is around welfare and work. If we had lots more people in work, we had a million leave work after Covid.
‘Every day, between 3,000 to 5,000 people are signing on out of work benefits. This is an out of control situation.
‘If we sort that and get those people off benefits and into work, we’ll grow our economy and we won’t need to worry about the triple lock.’
