Liz Truss has said she is “completely committed” to the triple lock on pensions after backbench MPs threatened to revolt when Downing Street refused to confirm the uplift would go ahead.
The Conservative manifesto pledge means the state pension should increase each year in line with the highest of three figures: inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent.
During her Tory leadership campaign the Prime Minister said promised the payment and benefits would rise with inflation, which has gone up to 10.1 per cent putting a further squeeze on living standards.
But Downing Street refused to confirm it would go ahead on Tuesday, hinting it could be dropped to help plug the £40 billion economic blackhole.
However in answer to a question during PMQs, Liz Truss said: "We have been clear in our manifesto that we will maintain the triple lock and I am completely committed to it. So is the Chancellor."
It comes after several MPs publicly criticised suggestions it would be scrapped.
Waveney MP Peter Aldous told the Standard: “It would be ill advised, having made the commitment in the summer that the triple lock will be reintroduced, to go back on that undertaking.”
East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton said: “We should keep it."
Tory MP Steve Double told Times Radio the Prime Minister's “position is becoming increasingly untenable".
"We've seen a complete reversal of just about everything she stood for in her leadership election campaign," he said.
"I think many of us are asking exactly what does Liz Truss now believe and stand for because she seems to have abandoned virtually everything that she told us she was about. I think she is absolutely the last chance saloon.
"I think it's becoming abundantly clear when you look at the loss of confidence in her as Prime Minister from the general public, and increasingly I think the loss of confidence in her from the parliamentary party, that we are going to get to the point where she really does have to consider her position and for the good of the country, step aside, and I think we will probably come to that place quite soon."
Maria Caulfield, MP for Lewes, said: “Pensioners should not be paying the price for the cost of living crisis whether caused by the war in Ukraine or mini budgets.”
Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann of Tottenham said it was “incomprehensible” that ministers would U-turn on the promise.
She said "millions have little or nothing other than the state pension to live off", adding that some could have to go back to work just to pay for food and heating next year.
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “With the cost of food and energy soaring, and the universal energy price guarantee set to end in April, pensioners on low and modest incomes are confronting the fact that basic goods and services are increasingly beyond their means.”
The triple lock was suspended for 2022-23 because the Covid-19 pandemic led to an 8 per cent rise in earnings when wages soared after the end of lockdown.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on Wednesday said the Government took its manifesto commitments “incredibly seriously” but refused to commit to pensions and benefits rising at the same rate.
“The Chancellor is going to be making a statement to the House in just over a week’s time,” he told Sky News.
He added that Ms Truss would be setting out a new “plan” for the Government at Prime Minister’s Questions where she faced a humiliating clash with Sir Keir Starmer after having dumped her entire economic strategy.
After sacking Kwasi Kwarteng and bringing Jeremey Hunt in to lead the Treasury following the the disastrous mini-budget, the new Chancellor told colleagues that they must find savings from their departmental budgets.
