Martin Lewis accuses Rachel Reeves of ‘mendacity’ to pensioners over state pension

Martin Lewis didn’t hold back as he took Chancellor Rachel Reeves to task after her appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. The money-saving guru, dialling in via video link, was quick to correct the politician’s claims about the 2024 Budget’s impact on state pensions during his chat with hosts Ed Balls and Kate Garraway.

He pointed out: “I was listening to your interview, two things she said when she was talking about state pensions.” He then clarified, “The first thing she said is that state pensioners will get £470 uplift because of the triple lock, that is simply factually not true for the vast majority of state pensioners, let’s just do this properly.”

Martin broke it down: “That is the rise you will get if you’re on the full, new state pension.”

But he highlighted a crucial detail: “First of all, three in four pensioners are on the old state pension.”, reports the Express. He revealed the real figures, saying, “The rise on the full old state pension is £360, not £470, so the vast majority of pensioners will not get £470 by definition.”

Martin didn’t stop there, adding another critical point: “To get the full rise, you have to have all of your national insurance contributions over the years that you needed; many people don’t.” He emphasised the scale of the issue: “Millions of people don’t have, so millions of people on the new state pension won’t get the full uplift but are on the old state pension and more.”

Martin also tackled another of Reeves’ points, stating, “She also sensed that we are protecting the poorest pensioners and she quoted there’s 151 percent uplift in claiming pension credit”. “A small number of people claim pension credit, and it’s gone up. Great, but there are still 700,000 of the poorest pensioners who are eligible for pension credit and those who are not claiming pension credit.”

“Who the government thinks should get the winter fuel payment but won’t get the winter fuel payment and they’re the ones I’m most worried about.”

The money expert continued: “One of the things that was really missing for me in yesterday’s budget we all expected some mitigation over this means testing of winter fuel payment, and it was not in there.”

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