Proposed amendment to Up-rating Bill seeking to maintain the universal credit uplift not selected by Commons Speaker

Tabled by former Work and Pensions Secretaries and the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, amendment proposed diverting savings from suspended pension triple lock to keeping the £20 uplift

The Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle has declined to select a tabled amendment to the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill proposing that the savings from replacing the state pension triple lock with a double lock in 2022/2023 be diverted to maintaining the £20 uplift in universal credit.

The Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 8 September 2021, makes provision for the earnings element of the triple lock - under which state pension increases are set by the highest of earnings growth, inflation or 2.5 per cent - to be suspended for the financial year 2022/2023. With the Bill's second reading debate taking place this afternoon, former Work and Pensions Secretaries Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green, and the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee Stephen Timms, tabled an amendment proposing - 

'That this House declines to give a second reading to the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill because it reduces pensioners’ statutory entitlement to up-rating in line with earnings, saving £4.5 billion in state pension expenditure in 2022/23, without diverting that saving towards maintaining the £20 uplift in universal credit, which according to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions would cost £5 billion for one year.'

However, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Reynolds later tweeted that -

'Unfortunately the Speaker has not selected the amendment today which would have given us a vote on stopping the cut to universal credit.'

For more information about the passage of the Bill, see Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill from parliament.uk