{"id":4289,"date":"2026-08-14T00:07:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T00:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/14\/politics-home-the-conservatives-should-scrap-the-triple-lock-and-build-houses-says-senior-tory\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T00:07:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T00:07:56","slug":"politics-home-the-conservatives-should-scrap-the-triple-lock-and-build-houses-says-senior-tory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/14\/politics-home-the-conservatives-should-scrap-the-triple-lock-and-build-houses-says-senior-tory\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics Home | The Conservatives Should Scrap The Triple Lock And Build Houses, Says Senior Tory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n <\/p><\/div>\n

David Lidington arrives at 10 Downing Street, 2018 (Alamy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Adam <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n 3 min read<\/span>13 August<\/span>
\n \n <\/p>\n

\n

A former Conservative cabinet minister has called on his party to back housebuilding and abandon the state pension triple lock, in a bid to “look beyond” elderly voters and “really make inroads” with younger generations.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

David Lidington, who served as Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister during his almost\u00a0three decades as a Tory MP, argued that a\u00a0future Conservative victory\u00a0will require the party to step out of its electoral comfort zone.<\/p>\n

Speaking on this week’s episode of PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown, which will be published on Friday (14 August), Lidington said the current generation\u00a0of Conservative MPs should look at how electorally successful leaders\u00a0like Margaret Thatcher\u00a0“departed massively from a lot of political assumptions that had dominated politics”.<\/p>\n

Lidington, now a\u00a0member of centre-right campaign group Prosper UK, said his party’s “big challenge” as it looks to rebuild under leader Kemi Badenoch is “to look\u00a0beyond our own core support, which is the over-65s at the moment, and really make inroads into the support of younger age groups”.<\/p>\n

“We need policies certainly on the economy and economic growth but also on things like housing policy, that are going to offer hope to young people with aspiration,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And you say to older people, ‘This is about building the right country for your kids and your grandkids.’\u00a0I think, you present the argument in that way, and people will buy into that, even if those policies are not directed purely to people my age.”<\/p>\n

Asked specifically whether he would reform the triple lock, he said: “I’m a beneficiary of the triple lock. I’m over pensionable age. I would scrap it.\u00a0I would go to a straightforward earnings link.”<\/p>\n

Under the existing\u00a0policy, introduced by the Coalition government, the state pension\u00a0is guaranteed to be uprated every year\u00a0by whichever is highest \u2013 inflation, average earnings growth or\u00a02.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

Critics warn that rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, combined with periods of high inflation, mean the commitment is not sustainable in the long term, and will only worsen intergenerational inequality at a time when young people face significant economic challenges.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Tony Blair Institute think tank called for the triple lock to be replaced, describing it as “increasingly unaffordable” and belonging to a “different era”.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Rundown, Lidington said: “At a time when young people can work\u00a0every hour God gives them and still struggle to get on the first rung of the housing ladder… People 18 to 25 living with their parents. When you’ve got\u00a0real issues about how technology is shaping up the job market for school and college leavers. People are delaying having children later and later\u00a0in life.<\/p>\n

“We need to give those people hope.”<\/p>\n

The former Conservative MP said he\u00a0would link reduced pension spending to funding\u00a0a reformed social care system as part of a “new intergenerational bargain”.<\/p>\n

“We\u00a0can’t just load ever more tax and borrowing onto the shoulders of young people, onto the shoulders of your children, your grandchildren, who are going to\u00a0have to pick up the tab if we don’t make changes,” he added.<\/p>\n

“There are ways in which to sell such a policy, but I do think those hard choices need to be faced up to.”<\/p>\n

In the forthcoming episode, Lidington also said Badenoch is\u00a0“absolutely right” to reject a pact with Reform UK, warning that a deal with Nigel Farage’s party would be “deeply, deeply damaging” for the Conservatives, and said\u00a0it was “contemptible” for\u00a0Reform’s\u00a0Zia Yusuf to call\u00a0former Tory defence secretary\u00a0Ben Wallace a “traitor”.<\/p>\n

This week’s The\u00a0Rundown is presented by Adam Payne, and is produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for\u00a0Podot<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n
  • Click here\u00a0to listen\u00a0to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.<\/strong><\/li>\n

    \n<\/ul>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    David Lidington arrives at 10 Downing Street, 2018 (Alamy) 3 min read13 August A former Conservative cabinet minister has called on his party to back housebuilding and abandon the state pension triple lock, in a bid to “look beyond” elderly voters and “really make inroads” with younger generations. David Lidington, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}