Campaigners Accuse Government Of ‘Sleight Of Hand’ By Saying Pensions Triple Lock Is ‘Unsustainable’

A minister admitted that the pension triple lock is unsustainable and could be watered down.

In a bombshell move, Mel Stride suggested retirees might not get the anticipated 8.5 per cent rise next year, despite a pledge to keep the state pension at least in line with earnings.

The warning from the Work and Pensions Secretary heightens fears about the triple lock, which has dragged up retirement incomes after years of neglect.

Mel Stride said the Government was committed to keeping the mechanism ‘at the moment’ but insisted it wasn’t ‘sustainable’ in the long term.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner repeatedly declined to say whether her party would commit to the triple lock in its election manifesto, and Rishi Sunak sidestepped questions about whether the Conservatives would do so. Former Tory leader William Hague, who’s close to Rishi Sunak said it was time to ‘unpick’ the triple lock and move to a cheaper system.

The triple lock guarantees that the state pension will increase in line with either inflation, wages or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest.

It was introduced by the coalition government in 2010 following derisory increases of as little as 75p a week under Labour.

Official figures revealed that average earnings increased by 8.5 per cent, which is higher than the expected inflation figure, but Mr Stride suggested ministers may strip out the value of bonuses when calculating next year’s triple lock figure, cutting the potential state pension rise to 7.8 per cent and saving the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds.

The move would hit 12.5 million older people. It would mean that someone on the new state pension would get an additional £15.90 a week next year rather than £17.33, costing them £74 a year.

The basic state pension, paid to millions who qualified before 2016, would increase by £12.18 a week rather than the expected £13.28.

Mr Stride stressed the need for any increases to take into account ‘affordability and the position of the economy’.

But campaigners accused the Government of ‘sleight of hand’.

Dennis Reed, of the campaign group Silver Voices, said pensioners would take a very dim view indeed if the Government starts watering down the triple lock in this way, and that the Government said it was committed to the triple lock, so people don’t expect this sort of sleight of hand to reduce it.

The triple lock isn’t ‘sustainable’ but if you’re a Prime Minister, MP or civil servant then everything is ‘sustainable’. They wouldn’t dream of watering down their salaries – odd that, isn’t it?

If they can’t afford it, then they should stop giving billions away to boat people and Ukraine.

That pension pot was paid into by hard-working people out of their wages. It was paid in good faith that when they reached pension age they would get a state pension. But it’s not really a state pension when you think about it. It’s money that people paid into, knowing that they would get a relatively decent pension when they retired. It’s a bit like putting your money into a bank in good faith for safekeeping and being able to take it out when you need to – what if the banks said ‘No, you can’t do that. We don’t have enough money to cover it’.

It’s people’s money that they paid into a scheme, not the Government’s money, so what have they done with all of that money that wasn’t theirs in the first place? They spent it, that’s what they did!