Mess with our state pension triple lock at your peril. That is the warning pensioners are sending today to Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer as the country begins its slow march to a General Election sometime next year.
The broadside follows the Prime Minister’s refusal to promise to protect the triple lock if he wins the next election.
Speaking after attending the G20 Summit in Delhi, India, last weekend, Mr Sunak said it was too early to ‘speculate on the election manifesto now’, adding ‘I’ve got plenty to get on with between now and then’.
Although he said the triple lock had been a ‘long-standing policy for us’, he gave no indication that it was here to stay, sparking fears that it might not be long for this world.
Mr Starmer has also yet to make a similar promise, although a spokesman for him said he remains ‘committed to it’.
Promise: The triple lock means that the state pension is increased every year by the higher of average earnings growth, inflation (in the year to September) or 2.5%
The state pension triple lock was introduced 13 years ago by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government led by David Cameron.
It means that the state pension is increased in April every year by the higher of average earnings growth (between May and July year-on-year), inflation (in the year to September) or 2.5 per cent.
This April, it was increased by 10.1 per cent, resulting in new retirees receiving a maximum weekly state pension of £203.85 — while those reaching state pension age before April 6, 2016 received a maximum of £156.20.
In April next year, the triple lock annual increase is likely to be 8.5 per cent, a result of yesterday’s earnings figures which showed that wage growth continues to outpace inflation (6.8 per cent). This would take the respective weekly pensions to £221.20 and £169.45.
Influential economic think-tanks are already warning about the impact of the triple lock on the Government’s finances. This year, the total bill for paying the state pension to 12.6 million people is expected to be £124 billon. Next year, it will rise to £135 billion.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warns that retaining the triple lock for too long will increase state pension spending so significantly that it will produce ‘insurmountable pressure for a much higher state pension age‘.
Currently, the age is 66 and is scheduled to rise to 67 between 2027 and 2028 — and then again thereafter.
On Monday, former Tory leader Lord Hague waded into the debate by stating — for the second time this year — that the triple lock was unaffordable and akin to a runaway train. It angered many party supporters.
What pensioners say about the triple lock
Terry and Mary Sheehan are staunch Conservatives, but they say that if Mr Sunak does not commit to the triple lock before the election, they will not vote for them. The Sheehans, from Bourne in Lincolnshire, are in receipt of the state pension.
Terry, a 68-year-old former claims handler for an insurance company, does not mince his words.
‘The triple lock should not be tampered with in any way, shape or form,’ he says. ‘It seems a bit rich that in April last year, pensioners just had to get on with it when the Government said it could not afford the 9 per cent increase we should have got under the triple lock.
‘Instead, we were given 3.1 per cent. Now, given this year’s decent increase — and next year’s healthy rise — the cost of the triple lock is being questioned by everyone bar those pensioners who depend upon it to meet ever increasing household bills.’
Rishi should invite a handful of pensioners to a brainstorming session at Number 10
Terry says the Government would be wise to listen to pensioners. ‘Rishi should invite a handful of pensioners to a brainstorming session at Number 10 Downing Street,’ he says.
‘They would soon tell him that the Government’s treatment of pensioners is all over the shop.
‘On the one hand it gives via the triple lock. On the other, it takes by freezing the personal allowance and dragging more pensioners into paying income tax.’
Mary, who at age 66 has just become eligible for the state pension after a long career as a head teacher’s personal assistant, says: ‘I’ve worked since I was age 18. I’ve earned my right to the state pension.
‘For most of my working life, I thought I would get it from age 60, but it got pushed back and back to 66. I’m okay financially, but a lot of my girlfriends are not.
‘Enough is enough. If the triple lock is removed, I will not be casting my vote at the next General Election for the Tories.’
Like the Sheehans, 76-year-old Jacqui Chambers, from Ipswich in Suffolk, says pulling the plug on the triple lock would be disastrous for the two main parties going into the next election.
Warning: In an outburst that angered many party supporters, former Tory leader Lord Hague (pictured) said that the triple lock was unaffordable and akin to a runaway train
Jacqui and husband Chris receive the lower basic state pension because they both became eligible for it before 2016.
She says: ‘I have friends who like us are worried about losing the triple lock. It would be foolish for the Tories or Labour to renege on it.
‘We both paid our National Insurance contributions throughout our working lives — I was a personal assistant while Chris was a grain inspector at various ports.
‘Surely our reward for that hard work should be a decent state pension. We are part of the country’s backbone and pensioners should be looked after. So much Government money is wasted on other questionable causes.’
This country’s army of pensioners deserve a decent state pension
Vincent Jackson, from Walsall in the West Midlands, believes it is imperative that the triple lock is protected. ‘This country’s army of pensioners deserve a decent state pension,’ he says.
Vincent, now 70, is dependent on the state pension to make the household finances work for himself and wife Patricia.
He worked hard throughout his career, doing numerous labour-intensive jobs — such as working in a power station cleaning the furnaces and being a supervisor for a toxic waste company.
Yet he managed to accumulate little private pension along the way — with one employer leaving its pension fund in such poor financial health that it reneged on the pensions it had promised to give workers.
‘What I find hard to accept,’ says Vincent, ‘is that the country can always find the money to pay MPs and civil servants decent pensions.
But when it comes to ordinary working people, who have contributed to the economy’s success over many years, the narrative is always about state pensions no longer being affordable.
‘Let me tell you: you don’t live on it, you merely survive.’
The triple lock has boosted pensions
Figures from the IFS indicate the state pension is now equivalent to a quarter of average earnings — its highest level since 1980.
This is primarily a result of the rejuvenating impact of the triple lock. But compared with other state pension schemes abroad, it remains among the least generous.
Martin Shaw, a 73-year-old retired postman from Bracknell in Berkshire, says the triple lock would be a ‘big vote winner’ for any political party that makes it part of their election manifesto.
‘I am sure a party that commits to the triple lock will attract many of the votes among the country’s 12 million pensioners,’ he says.
‘I believe it is only right that the elderly in our community should benefit from a state pension that enables them to cope with the cost of living.
‘The state pension is a small price for the taxes we have paid the Government over our lifetime of work.’
On Monday, Martin wrote to his MP, Conservative James Sunderland, demanding that the triple lock be retained.
Carol Moore, from Westerleigh in South Gloucestershire, is heavily dependent on the state pension to make her finances work.
Seventy-seven in December, Carol took her state pension at age 60, but the triple lock only applies to her basic state pension — not the payment under the state earnings related pension scheme (Serps).
The triple lock provides her with a financial comfort blanket and she says any erosion of it would compromise her lifestyle. But she also believes the state pension age should not keep rising to keep the lock in place.
‘I’m lucky that I got the pension when I was 60,’ she says, ‘but it’s not right that people should now wait until their late 60s before being eligible for it.’
Triple lock or no triple lock? It is a political hot potato.
