The state pension came into focus over the last week or so as, despite fears that it would be scrapped, Boris Johnson reportedly “put his foot down” and overruled Chancellor Rishi Sunak to keep triple lock increases in place. Full details can be found in the first story below.

The cost of state pension increases was laid bare by recent analysis from Aegon. According to its findings, the full new state pension of £175.20 per week is worth around £336,500. This means for someone to buy the full state pension for the rest of their life through an annuity it would cost £336,500. Full details on this being found in the story below.

Elsewhere this week, a number of public institutions were forced to address a certain amount of criticism. HMRC and the wider government responded to Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office who condemned pension tax relief rules. Despite the committee calling for systematic changes, the government refused to budge and disagreed with the committee’s verdicts.

Additionally, recent figures from the Bank of England were called into question. The central banks latest Money and Credit report detailed debt repayments had increased to £20.6billion from £19.6billion in July. This seemingly good news was rebutted by the Money Advice Trust, who detailed the statistics “does not reflect the lived reality for millions of households”.

Coronavirus continued to have an impact on the nation’s economy as new self-isolation rules came into force recently, which will have knock on effects for Universal Credit claimants. Rishi Sunak also revealed his Winter Economy Plan, detailing what the next forms of support will be for employees and the self-employed.

Finally, credit card holders were offered support from the FCA to last beyond October, just as balance transfer deals were pulled from the market. Financial customers have been provided with tips on how to protect their funds as it was revealed £200million has been lost to fraudsters. Details on this provided in our final stories below.