The Triple Lock is facing growing speculation amid fears the long-standing pledge, which dates back to 2011, could be scrapped.
State pensioners have been warned a long-standing rule could be scrapped with it “under scrutiny”. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Triple Lock is facing growing speculation amid fears the long-standing pledge, which dates back to 2011, could be scrapped.
Jon Greer, Quilter’s head of retirement policy, said: “What was intended as a mechanism to protect pensioners from poverty is now colliding with fiscal drag. This situation is the result of the triple lock producing some significant increases in the state pension due to high inflation and earning figures while the Government has failed to uprate tax thresholds in tandem.”
Mike Ambery, retirement savings director at Standard Life, said the Government was “walking a tightrope between existing spending commitments and its own fiscal rules”.
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“At an annual cost of nearly £140billion the state pension would have been an attractive but politically fraught area for cost saving,” Ambery said. The Social Market Foundation’s Sarah Brown said: “The challenge is balancing fiscal responsibility while ensuring retirees have adequate incomes.”
She noted that means-testing could cut costs by providing support to those who need it most, but warned this “comes with complex administrative hurdles”. Brown concluded that reform of the triple lock “seems inevitable” as costs continue to mount.
Lord Jim O’Neill said: “They have hemmed themselves in because of the manifesto commitments and compounded that by announcing such large increases in areas such as health and school buildings the first time around.”
The economist said Labour had initially “suffered from a lack of confidence and unfamiliarity with being in office” but was now “starting to tackle some sacred cows”, citing Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting’s decision to scrap NHS England.
He added: “They already busted a manifesto commitment by cutting international aid, so why would that not open the door to breaking other manifesto pledges?
“To really give them the scope for a lot of the things they want to do on current spending, and not get into the Tory game of constant cutting at the margins, they are going to have to deal with serious income taxes or break the triple lock.
“Keeping the triple lock is just bonkers – at least they could means-test it.”
