Nigel Farage has pledged that Reform UK would keep the triple lock for state pensions, if his party wins the next general election. The Reform leader said Reform UK could afford it “many, many times over”, thanks to cuts to the welfare bill to be unveiled in two weeks’ time.

The police guarantees that the state pension rises each year in line with inflation, earnings or 2.5%. Mr Farage told a press conference: “When I said the jury’s out on the triple lock and what we would decide to do on this and with many other issues too, if I could just interpret that into simple English, what I meant was the jury’s out. Not that I’d made my mind up either way. And we have discussed it, and we have debated it, and we’ve decided it’s going to stay.”

Mr Farage had previously questioned whether the affordability of the measure. But explaining why he had decided to back the triple lock now, he said: “For me, what decided it was: number one, there are a lot of older pensioners who got their pensions before 2016 who are really pretty disadvantaged by the current system.

“Secondly, that the people to whom pensions are being paid, in vast majority – certainly compared to a younger generation today – are those that have actually worked and paid into the system. And we are very much the party of alarm clock Britain – those that work and therefore should reap rewards later in life.

“But the third and most decisive reason is that within the next two weeks, we are going to announce the biggest cuts to the benefits bill ever seen in the history of this country. So when questions get asked in a minute, how can you afford it? Well, we can afford it many, many times over.”

Reform UK is the first party to promise to keep the triple lock in place ahead of the next general election, due in 2029.

Labour has committed to the p