Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken the winter fuel allowance off 10 million pensioners (Image: PA)
Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have been warned they will never be forgiven by pensioners if they tamper with .
Campaign groups have demanded the pledge be honoured in full amid fears it could come under threat.
Concerns intensified after Sir Keir brought in a new pensions minister this week who has previously championed scrapping the benefit.
And they ratched up further on Friday after Mrs Badenoch was forced to insist she won’t means-test the lock following reports suggesting she would consider the change.
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Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch during an appearance on LBC Radio for a phone-in, at the Glo (Image: PA)
The Tory leader clarified her position following an LBC phone-in where she was asked if she would look at stripping the wealthiest retirees of the guarantee.
Mrs Badenoch was asked by a listener whether she would consider “looking at” pensioners who have the but don’t need it, and if that money should be redirected to “help build more houses or help young people to become homeowners”.
She responded that redistributing funds from those who “do not need it” was “exactly the sort of thing” the would look at, prompting some confusion that she would consider means testing the .
Labour leapt on the comments, with saying: “Kemi Badenoch finally has her first policy – a cut to the .”
The hit back by accusing Labour of spreading “fake news”, insisting: “The have always protected the .”
The guarantee, which was introduced by the under Lord Cameron, ensures that the increases by whichever is highest out of inflation, average wage rises and 2.5%, and applies to everyone with a .
That means the current of £221.20 a week will rise by £472 a year from April 2025, in line with the latest growth in wages, which have risen by 4.1%.
However, Mrs Badenoch had responded, saying: “No, we’re going to look at means testing. Means testing is something which we don’t do properly here. I’m someone who always said, for example, that millionaires should not be getting the .”
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New pensions minister Torsten Bell has been a vocal critic of the triple lock (Image: -)
She has accused Labour of going too far by stripping all but the poorest pensioners of the benefit, but said “millionaires” should not be entitled to it.
During the LBC show, Mrs Badenoch went on to say that Rachel Reeves had taken means testing “to the extreme” where “people who are actually on the breadline have had their taken away”.
She continued: “We don’t have a system that knows who should get what. That’s the sort of thing that we need to be looking at,” she said.
“Now, the is a policy which we supported throughout our 14 years in government. That was a Conservative policy, but we need to make sure that we are growing.”
Mrs Badenoch lashed out at Labour on Friday over its treatment of pensioners.
Posting on Twitter/X she wrote: “Labour punished poor pensioners, snatching away winter fuel payments due to poor means testing.
“We need better mechanisms, not proxies like pension credit or free school meals. So why are Labour, Reform, and Lib Dems pretending we’re cancelling the ? They’re scared.”
An ally of Mrs Badenoch said: “Kemi literally said yesterday she is going to take her time building policy, and she wants to look at everything: means testing, tuition fees, immigration and so on.
“The fact that Labour are rushing out fake press releases to pretend that these are policies rather than debates we need and must have, shows Starmer and Reeves are the old, dishonest politics and they’re already out of ideas.”
Torsten Bell was made pensions minister on Tuesday after a mini-reshuffle following Tulip Siddiq’s resignation after a sleaze probe.
He has previously proposed scrapping the and valuable tax reliefs on the retirement savings of higher earners.
The Express crusade to save the guarantee, alongside Silver Voices campaigners, has twice secured big rises in the after high inflation and pay increases sparked jitters about the cost.
Asked about Mrs Badenoch’s comments on Friday morning, Nigel Huddleston, the Conservative Party co-chairman, said she had been misrepresented.
“I think you have been reading too many Labour Party press releases there. That is not what [she said],” he said.
“What Kemi said yesterday in answer to the , are you going to get rid of the , the first word out of her mouth was ‘no’.
“What she talked about in an interview was about means testing and this is something she has commented on before in the context of, for example, winter fuel and she said ‘look, millionaires probably shouldn’t get it’. Millionaires, not millions of pensioners, millionaires.”
A Tory source said the party had absolutely no plans to touch the or the , but would look at means testing more generally.
Downing Street said the Prime Minister is “committed” to the .
A Liberal Democrat source said: “First Kemi Badenoch came for the mothers and now she has set her sights on the grandmothers.
“Millions of pensioners felt betrayed by Labour’s cut to the , now it’s clear their pensions wouldn’t be safe with the .
“We will be reminding pensioners at every opportunity that Kemi Badenoch wants to take an axe to the .”
Last month Shadow chancellor Mel Stride suggested a future Conservative government could axe the .
He said the commitment was “unsustainable” in the “very long term”.
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: “It will come as no surprise that Age UK is implacably opposed to the idea of means-testing the . Everyone contributes to their throughout their working lives and it forms the bedrock of older people’s income in retirement.
“Ending the universalism of the would run a huge risk of fatally undermining an element of the welfare state that has served this country very well – even if we wish it paid more.
“Today, it’s good that more of us are retiring with some private pension provision, but for most people their still forms the majority of the money coming in once they reach their age.
“And of course, some groups, especially women, are less likely to have had the chance to build up substantial, or sometimes any, private savings to enable them to enjoy a more comfortable retirement.
“The events of recent months, following the Government’s ill-advised decision to slash entitlement to , have also brought into sharp relief the inherent problems of means-testing benefits or other entitlements designed for older people.
“In short, too many who are eligible fail to claim, leaving some of the poorest and most vulnerable in a really precarious position. This is an important lesson that politicians in all parties should learn.”