Liz Truss has previously suggested universal benefits such as the state pension should be scrapped because of the “huge expense” to taxpayers of “recycling” their money through the system – prompting fears she could go further still with her plans to cut back the benefits bill.
The proposal, included in her motion to the Liberal Democrat Youth conference in spring 1995, highlighted the “enormous – and rising – cost of pensions and child benefit”, calling for a “search for realistic alternatives to universal benefits”.
