Welfare and pensions

Plaid Cymru

Main pledges

  • Keep the triple-lock on pensions and ensure a Living Pension for all
  • Scrap the "Bedroom Tax"
  • Oppose increases in the pension age
  • Ban private firms from carrying out benefits assessments for profit
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Conservative

Main pledges

  • Replace pensions triple lock with guarantee that increases after 2020 will at least match inflation and average wages
  • Means-test Winter Fuel Payments "focusing assistance on the least well-off pensioners"
  • Keep other pensioner benefits, including free bus passes and TV licences
  • Give more power to the Pensions Regulator to protect private pensions
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Labour

Main pledges

  • Keep the pension triple lock and benefits for pensioners, such as the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes
  • Review the benefit cap, universal credit and reinstate housing benefit for under 21s
  • Increase employment and support allowance by £30 per week
  • Increase carer's allowance by £11 a week
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Labour

Main pledges

  • Scrap the current "punitive" benefit sanctions system and end the bedroom tax across the UK
  • End reassessments for people with severe long-term conditions
  • Secure free bus passes in Scotland for those aged 60 and above
  • Bring back housing benefit for under-21s
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

UKIP

Main pledges

  • Maintain the triple-lock on state pensions
  • Reverse cuts to care budgets and put £2bn every year into social care
  • Increase Carer’s Allowance to match higher level of Job Seeker’s Allowance (£73.10)
  • Scrap the bedroom tax
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Lib Dems

Main pledges

  • Keep the triple lock on pensions and free bus passes
  • Withdraw winter fuel payments for wealthy pensioners
  • Reverse cuts to Universal Credit
  • Uprate working age benefits in line with inflation
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Conservative

Main pledges

  • No plans for further radical welfare reform in this parliament
  • Continue the rollout of Universal Credit
  • Protect universal Winter Fuel Payments for all older people. No means-testing in Scotland, unlike the policy for England.
  • Move from triple to double lock on state pensions, meaning they rise in line with earnings or inflation - whichever is highest
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Lib Dems

Main pledges

  • Maintain the 'triple lock' of increasing the State Pension each year by the highest of earnings growth, prices growth or 2.5% for the next parliament
  • Pledge to scrap the two-child rule for tax credits - including the controversial "rape clause"
  • Uprate working-age benefits at least in line with inflation
  • Extend free childcare and encourage new fathers to take time off with an additional month's paid paternity leave
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

SNP

Main pledges

  • Keep the pensions triple lock across the UK
  • End the freeze on working age benefits and halt further cuts
  • Protect universal winter fuel payments, which the Conservatives want to means test
  • Support the WASPI campaign, so women born in the 1950s receive the pensions they are due
What the other parties say

Welfare and pensions

Green

Main pledges

  • Move towards a system of a "universal basic income"
  • Reinstate housing benefit for under-21s
  • Abolish the "bedroom tax"
What the other parties say