19 Oct James Cleverly refuses to confirm government will keep pensions triple lock
FOREIGN Secretary James Cleverly has refused to rule out the Government dropping its commitment to maintain the triple lock on benefits and pensions.
He said: “The triple lock was a manifesto commitment, and we take manifesto commitments very seriously. But it wouldn’t be right for me to pre-announce or speculate about any of the things that the Chancellor might put in his statement in just over a week’s time.
“I know that will be deeply frustrating for the people that you’ve been talking to who are looking at those inflation figures, they are looking at those interest rate rises, and they are worried about them.
“We completely get that and we want to give them certainty as soon as we can, but it wouldn’t be right for me to, as I say, to speculate about what the chancellor might be saying next week.”
In an interview during Breakfast with Paul Hawkins and Isabel Webster, he said: “The Prime Minister said in an interview that she gave earlier on this week that she recognised that some of the measures that were put forward by Kwasi Kwarteng did not have the effect that we wanted.
“The bond markets, the gilt markets were uncomfortable with them, that put pressure on our cost of borrowing, and we have to respond to that. And she did. And she took tough and difficult actions, but has calmed those bond yields down, which means that the long term cost of borrowing is not as high as it might otherwise be.
“We want to continue bringing those down. That’s why the chancellor has made it clear that we will have to make difficult decisions. But these difficult decisions are the kinds of decisions that mean that we can protect people from those energy price increases, that we can still have the confidence that the UK is an economically solid player on the world stage.
Mr Cleverly said: “I think what the British people want, quite legitimately, is to see their Government, to see their Prime Minister focusing on their concerns, on the issues that affect their everyday life.
“What we have seen over the last six months, is the Conservative Party and the government spending a lot of time talking about itself. I don’t think that doing that for even longer still is good news for the people that we’re here to serve is what they want to see.
“And it’s right that they want us to be relentlessly focused on the things that affect their lives. So all this talk, all this speculation, this Westminster gossip is not doing for them what they need, which is for us to demonstrate that we’re focused on their concerns.
“The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, me, the other members of government recognise that British people want to see us getting on with our job. That’s what she’s focused on. That’s what I’m focused on. And that’s what we’re going to work on now.”
