"The triple lock is a Conservative policy. That's not something I'm changing." Sky's @robpowellnews questions Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch on her policy on welfare payments and the pensions triple lock. 📱 https://t.co/xkAlVP3z6f 📺 Sky 501 and YouTube https://t.co/9s7eiZL4hK
🚨📝 NEW COLUMN Britain is sleepwalking into fiscal catastrophe The triple lock is emblematic of this - even if it was right to introduce it, the policy's time has surely passed Yet all political parties are full-square behind it Which leader will be bold enough to, er, lead? https://t.co/tBRC7F1HOr
La crise économique et budgétaire qui a accéléré la chute de l’Empire romain offre des parallèles troublants avec notre propre modèle à bout de souffle… ➡️ https://t.co/HCKBCVJosA ✍️ @beatricemathieu https://t.co/OdTEj7Z8W6
UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch warned that Britain’s welfare budget is a “ticking time bomb” and urged sweeping curbs on sickness and disability benefits, including barring most foreign nationals from claiming them. In a speech on 10 July she argued that the current system is “unsustainable”, saying the share of people classed as disabled—now around one in four—risks stripping the term of meaning. Badenoch wants eligibility for Personal Independence Payment and health-related Universal Credit top-ups tightened so that payments go only to people with the most severe conditions and, with limited exceptions, to British citizens. Freedom-of-information data obtained by her party put monthly Universal Credit payments to households containing a foreign national at £941 million, a figure she cited as evidence that the system is being stretched. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the sickness-benefits bill is on course to reach about £100 billion a year, while official forecasts show the wider working-age welfare budget rising by nearly £30 billion by 2030. Badenoch said unchecked growth in these costs could jeopardise the public finances and the broader economy. Her demands go beyond a government bill that passed the House of Commons on 9 July and modestly trims sickness payments; several of Badenoch’s proposed amendments were defeated. Labour accused the Conservatives of mishandling welfare for 14 years, while Badenoch criticised both Labour’s retreat from deeper savings and Reform UK’s pledge to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Although she left the costly pensions triple lock untouched, Badenoch signalled that no part of the benefits system is immune from future review, setting up a sharpened political divide over how to rein in Britain’s welfare spending ahead of the next election.