I’ve been a big supporter of the ‘triple-lock’. It was designed to lift pensioners out of poverty by increasing the state pension faster than everyone else’s earnings, at the rate of working wages, or price rises, or 2.5% (whichever was highest). And it’s worked brilliantly; pensioner poverty is miles lower than before. But, of course, now it’s original job is done, it wouldn’t be fair to expect working-age taxpayers to fund above-average rises in the state pension for ever, while their own wages rise more slowly. In the long term, if the triple lock isn’t changed, pensioners would end up getting as much as millionaires, while their working-age children had to pay unaffordable taxes to fund it. Clearly that wouldn’t be right, so changing the ‘triple lock’ to a ‘double lock’ (rising as fast as wages or prices, whichever is quicker) will mean pensioners won’t slip back into poverty. Their incomes will keep up with everyone else’s, but won’t accelerate unfairly faster for ever either.
