David Cameron pledges to honour the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings

Oft-forgotten as one of the final major announcements of Iain Duncan Smith's tenure as party leader, the restoration of the link between the state pension and earnings will happen if David Cameron become Prime Minister.

According to the FT, the Tory leader has put paid to speculation that he might renege on the promise at a pensions summit today.

The paper's online report quotes Mr Cameron as saying:

“The reason it is affordable is because of the agreement that the parties came to over raising the state pension age progressively from 65 to 68. We have got to find huge savings in public spending. But there is a consensus, not just among the politicians, that at the heart of the pension system there should be a strong basic state pension, and that the spread of means-testing has gone too far. It would be a false economy to say we can’t increase the basic state pension.”

Jonathan Isaby