Sir Stephen Timms

We are not proposing any change in those arrangements. As the hon. Gentleman will know, those arrangements were introduced by the previous Government. In fact, the coalition Government put in place the current arrangements for the new state pension, which were introduced with commitments to future uprating. We are committed to delivering the triple lock, but we are not planning to change the relativities between those two arrangements. Most working-age benefits and other benefits for people below state pension age will also increase by 3.8%. They includes statutory payments such as statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, the personal allowances of income support, housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance, and contributory employment and support allowance. The order will also increase by 3.8% the child amounts, the carer amounts, transitional severe disability premiums in universal credit, and pensioner and carer premiums in income-related employment and support allowance. As I mentioned earlier, the Universal Credit Act 2025 included important changes to rebalance universal credit. For 2026-27, the standard allowance in universal credit will be uprated by September’s consumer prices index plus an additional 2.3%. That represents the first ever permanent above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance, and I believe that it is the first permanent real-terms increase in the headline benefit rate since the 1970s.[Official Report, 23 February 2026; Vol. 781, c. 4WC.] (Correction) That is not part of the order that we are debating, but all these increases will apply across Great Britain.