JAMES DALY: We will offer dignity and financial security to pensioners

The choice at the election is clear- stick with the plan by choosing bold action for a safer, more secure and more prosperous future with Rishi Sunak, or go back to square one with Keir Starmer and the same old Labour.

As part of the Conservatives plan for our country, the Prime Minister has announced a new Triple Lock Plus which will cut income tax for pensioners from next year and make sure the state pension is always below their tax threshold.

We introduced the Triple Lock in 2010 so the state pension always rises by the higher of either earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent.

As a result, pensioners got a £900 increase in the state pension in April this year – an increase of 8.5 per cent.

The state pension has risen by £3,700 since 2010 in cash terms - £1,000 more than if it had been uprated under Labour’s plans since 2010.

We have also and quite rightly provided pensioners with winter fuel payments, free eye tests, NHS prescriptions and free bus passes.

This year we have cut tax for working people by reducing National Insurance from 12 to eight per cent.

Now we will cut taxes for pensioners as well to provide pensioners with dignity and financial security.

Bury North MP James Daly (Image: James Daly)

From next April we will increase the personal allowance for pensioners in line with the Triple Lock by introducing a new age-related allowance – a tax cut of around £100 for eight million pensioners.

And we will guarantee in legislation that the pensioner's personal allowance will rise in line with the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent so that it is higher than the state pension in each year of the next Parliament.

On current forecasts, this will mean the state pension increases by a further £428 in April next year to over £11,970, and increases by around £1,685 to £13,200 by the end of the Parliament.

We are doing this because it is a core Conservative value that those who have worked hard during their lives should have dignity, and security in retirement.

Under Labour, the state pension will be dragged into income tax for the first time, raiding pensioners just like the last Labour government.

The last time they were in power, Labour’s pension tax raid wiped at least £118bn off the value of people’s pensions.

Between 1997 and 2013-14, the abolition of payable tax credits for pension schemes cost £117.97bn.

Until the arrival of Gordon Brown in the Treasury under the last Labour government we were the best pensioned country in Europe.

His record was truly disastrous- gold sales, loose banking regulation, an exploding deficit and a housing bubble which prompted the decline in homeownership.

Only the Conservatives will take the bold action to deliver a secure future for you, your family and for Britain in an increasingly uncertain world.

James Daly is the Conservative candidate for Bury North in the General Election on July 4. You can keep up with what he is up to on Facebook at fb.com/JamesDaly4BuryNorth