New calls to give people earlier guarantee of annual State Pension and benefits uprating payments

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The Work and Pensions Committee has said that uprating of benefits should be guaranteed by the UK Government every year and the Household Support Fund should be made permanent.

Committee chairman Sir Stephen Timms said the annual “will they or won’t they speculation” in the run-up to each Budget announcement on whether benefits will rise in line with inflation must end.The lead-up to the Autumn Statement saw concerns from campaigners that the Chancellor would use a more recent lower inflation figure to uprate benefits, but Jeremy Hunt confirmed in November that they would rise in the usual way using the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate of 6.7 per cent, while the State Pension would increase using the Triple Lock measure.However, it’s worth noting that while the Basic and New State Pensions will rise by 8.5 per cent from April 8, additional elements including deferred State Pensions will rise by the CPI figure of 6.7 per cent.In its report published on Thursday, the cross-party group of MPs said: “There remains uncertainty for some benefits each year as to whether they will be uprated.”The committee recommended that, from the financial year 2025/26, the UK Government “should make an ‘uprating guarantee’ to uprate benefits annually with a consistent measure, for example prices”.They said any decision to deviate from such a guarantee should see the UK Government clearly setting out its reasoning for doing so to Parliament.The report said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should “outline a clear benchmark” for benefits such as Universal Credit, suggesting it could consider methodology used in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and Trussell Trust’s so-called essentials guarantee.Both