Minister defends triple lock for pensioners despite affordability concerns

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has defended the continuation of the triple lock for pensioners despite concerns on long-term affordability.

The triple lock refers to the commitment to raise the state pension every year in line with whichever is highest out of wage growth, inflation or 2.5%.

As of Monday, people receiving the state pension will get a 8.5% increase worth an extra £900 a year to full rate claimants.

Mr Stride said the long-term sustainability of the triple lock would be contingent on rules set by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

He told Times Radio: “This is a question really about the OBR and fiscal targets. We work all of our fiscal policy within that very clearly set out framework and that’s why your listeners will hear references to something called the headroom that the Chancellor has to play with… and there’s about £6 billion of it at the moment.

“But the important point here is that, of course, any commitment like this will have to be fully funded and it will have to meet the fiscal targets as set out by the OBR and I can assure you going forward, that in every fiscal event, that will be the case.”

Pensioners are entitled to inflationary increases in income because “they don’t have the ability to adjust their economic circumstances”, Mr Stride added.

Questioned as to why the Government would raise pensions in line with inflation but not award pay rises to junior doctors, he said: “Pensioners are on fixed incomes, they don’t have the ability to adjust their economic circumstances as other people who might go out and work more hours or get a different job or seek a promotion or a salary increase or whatever it may be. Those things are typically not there for pensioners.

“So I think we have a duty as a society now, we’ve seen what happens when you don’t take this approach and that’s what happened under the last Labour government, where we had very high levels of pensioner poverty.

“Pensioner poverty under this government has fallen by 200,000 pensioners – under the last government it was much higher.”

Among its other measures to help pensioners, the Department for Work and Pensions pointed to last year’s 10.1% state pension rise, which it claimed was the highest cash increase in history, plus winter support worth nearly £5 billion.

The full state pension rate for last year was £10,600 and it will rise to £11,500 a year.

Mr Stride denied that the commitment to the triple lock was an effort to secure the favour of older voters, as polls show that the over-65s are the only demographic in which the Conservatives have a lead on Labour.

He said: “Polls move around and I mentioned the triple lock which is really what underpins the announcement today.

“Now, of course that was brought in several years ago and if you were interviewing me then you wouldn’t have been perhaps talking about the same kind of polling that we’re seeing today. This is a continuation of a very clear policy to make sure that we support pensioners.”

He added: “It’s really important that people on fixed incomes are protected and they will be and continue to be under this government because that triple lock – we have committed, Labour have not committed to this yet at least.

“We have committed that in the next parliament and in our manifesto, the triple lock will continue for every year of the next parliament.”

Labour suggested it is now the “party for pensioners”, who it claimed had paid “a heavy price for 14 years of devastating Tory economic failure”.

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Wendy Chamberlain said: “Jeremy Hunt has taken a bolt cutter to the triple lock. This Conservative Government is picking pensioners’ pockets to try and fill the black hole caused by their disastrous economic policy.