THE new chairman of the Conservative Party has refused to say if the pensions triple lock will be maintained when the government outlines its plans in the autumn statement later this month
Nadam Zahawi told GB News: “We’ve got a war on our continent. In 2019, we didn’t have war on our continent. We’ve had an extraordinary pandemic that we had to deal with in 2019. Of course, we didn’t have that.
“What the Prime Minister did say is that there’s going to be tough decisions, but also he will always make sure that the most vulnerable are put first; they are the ones that we focused on.
“He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who effectively delivered £1,200 for the most vulnerable eight million households in our country he’ll continue to prioritise the most vulnerable. Pensioners don’t have the luxury of being able to take on work and more hours to augment their pension to add that to their income, and he’ll be conscious of that as well as the Chancellor.
“What he won’t do is pre-empt the Autumn statement…we have budgets, and that’s what we wait to hear from the Chancellor. There’s not going to be easy decisions.”
Asked about the re-imposition of the ban on onshore fracking in an interview with Andrew Pierce and Rosie Wright on GB News, he said: “The Prime Minister quite rightly decided that the 2019 manifesto was the manifesto that delivered that [electoral] mandate for us, and that we need to focus on that manifest.”
On the appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, he said: “He looked at the detail of what happened and he felt that Suella was deserving of that second chance and…people deserve a second chance and retention is a good thing as well.
“Suella is as a very talented Home Secretary and has got a massive in-tray to deal with, not least with the small boats issue where people are being exploited and their lives are being put in danger. We’ve seen the numbers rise this year, we have a burning platform to deal with.
“I was very much part of that team when I was talking with the Duchy of Lancaster dealing with that almost on a daily basis to put a plan in place to fix that issue, which is really, really difficult.
“It’s almost £6 million a day in costs at the moment and we have to fix it, and fix it sustainably, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, but Suella I think is deserving of a second chance.
“I guess the big difference is that in the old world governments didn’t change so rapidly. It would take years before you get a new administration and people would be out and then come back in with a second chance. Politics now moves at breakneck speed as I discovered this weekend. Life comes at you fast.”
Asked if the government has completely lost control of the country’s borders, Mr Zahawi said: “That illegal migration, these small boats, the gangs we have to deal with…they’re abusing the Modern Slavery Act.
“We’re going to close that, Suella’s doing that. There’s a number of work streams that she is focused on. That’s one of them. Operationalising the Rwanda scheme is another one working with our French counterparts on patrols.
“And making sure that we do more work together with Albania to save the Albanian government that we deal with at source. There’s a number of work streams that we’re working at rapidly and I know that she’s focused on, as is the Prime Minister, there are no easy answers, but we are determined to fix this.
“I think it is right that the Prime Minister has put the right person in place in Suella Braverman.”
