Rich pensioners were told to return a £1,000 state pension hike if they don’t need it today, amid a row over plans to up the payment while telling workers to cool pay rise demands.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey defended plans to spend billions on a double-digit boost for retirees next year after the Treasury vowed to reinstate its ‘triple lock’ pledge.
The bumper rise could amount to nearly £1,000 a year extra at the same time that ministers are insisting that public sector workers like train staff, teachers and nurses temper their demands to cool rampant inflation.
Former chancellor Lord Clarke became the latest person to attack the increase, telling the BBC’s World at One today the government needed to ‘protect the poor – stop giving me money to pay my power bills’.
But Ms Coffey told the same programme the government was thinking about ‘people who are worried they won’t have enough money to heat their homes’.
On Monday a new report revealed around one in seven…
