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The pensions triple lock is one of those policies that – despite only being introduced in 2010 – now feels so deep-rooted that no party can challenge it.
Turn the clock back to the coalition government: conscious of pensioner poverty and the state pension having fallen in real terms over many years, they came up with a guarantee.
Every year it would be either increased in line with prices (CPI inflation), to match average wages, or by 2.5% – whichever was the highest.
This was the post-financial crash era of rock-bottom interest rates and low inflation. Now all that has changed.
The state pension is likely to rise by 8.5% after April, in line with the latest earnings data – including bonuses.
This eclipses inflation which is running at around 7% and forecast to fall.
The average weekly state pension would rise from £203.85 to £221.20 a week.
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Conservative ministers have stuck to the policy in every election manifesto, not least because pensioners turn out to vote.
The British Election Study team in 2018 found that turnout by age ranged from 40% to 50% among the youngest voters and over 80% for the oldest – although it varies by constituency.
The former coalition pensions minister Steve Webb has pointed out that the increase next year will take half a million pensioners over the income tax threshold – giving the Treasury a windfall.
Rishi Sunak, asked on his trip to the G20 about this issue, did not commit to keeping it after the election; although media coverage of this saw Number 10 commit to the policy.
Is widely supported policy unaffordable?
The problem is that it is becoming increasingly unaffordable as working-age people will have to bear the cost of an ageing population’s benefits on their taxes.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that an additional £11bn a year is spent on the state pension due to the triple lock – compared with if it had been raised by either…
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