Ex-Tory spinner reveals Treasury secrets
Treasury officials “absolutely hate” the state pension triple lock and want to get rid of it completely, an ex-Tory aide has revealed.
Civil servants also repeatedly pushed for the winter fuel allowance to be means-tested for years before Rachel Reeves agreed to it.
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Former adviser Cameron Brown confirmed that the Treasury has a list of measures it puts before new Chancellors as ways they can save money.
Speaking to The Division Bell Podcast, he said: “The list exists, I’ve seen it, it would make your blood run cold, the options on it.
“They are not masochists, they are just very mild-mannered lovely individuals that are civil servants in the Treasury.
“They have a list of policies they instinctively hate.
“Whenever there’s a new chancellor and the chancellor says ‘I want you to produce a list of policies that we can announce in the budget, they always dust off this list their favoured tax changes or spending changes.
“Right at the top of it is increasing fuel duty because they hate the fact that we have frozen fuel duty now for I think now 13 years in a row, which is fantastic for drivers but for the Treasury it’s just like we have lost billions and billions of pounds and they want the money.
“Second, of course, is the winter fuel payments, making that means tested and that was always put to us as an option to save money.
Rachel Reeves protected the triple lock in her budget on Wednesday (Image: Adrian Dennis)
“Why on earth would we ever do that because you have this cliff edge problem that we have now where a pensioner on ￡12,000 a year is going to lose ￡300 over the winter period.
“And the last amongst them, of course, is just getting rid of the triple lock completely.
“The Treasury hates that, it absolutely hates it.
“The Treasury officials don't like it because it goes up and up and up constantly regardless of the wider economic situation.
“It's a very, very expensive policy. But you know what? Pensioners can't change jobs or start work; they have no other option.
“For many of them, this is their only source of income. So I think it's right that we protect it. “But the Treasury are not fans.”
One of Ms Reeves’ first acts as Chancellor was to means-test the winter fuel allowance, stripping 10 million pensioners of their payments of up to ￡300.
She confirmed the triple lock on state pensions will remain, which means pensions go up by at least 2.5%, inflation or average earnings.
It means from April, payments will go up by 4.1%, which amounts to ￡470 a year for those on the full new state pension.
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Mr Brown worked for Kwasi Kwarteng when he was chancellor and carried out the mini-budget before going on to advise successor Jeremy Hunt.
The former aide told how he had “deep political concerns” about the mini-budget but his job had been to give media advice.
He said Mr Hunt had “picked up the pieces” and put the economy back on a sound footing but the impact on the party’s reputation was still being felt.
For more, you can listen to The Division Bell on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts
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