Ros Altmann's comments on the triple lock on state pensions

Ros Altmann seemed to have changed her tenor this morning. She does want (it appears) the pension to rise and commented on how low it is compared to others; she just doesn't think we need the 2.5% to do it. She also said that the triple lock is only agreed/promised until 2020 so she wants a promise to have at least a double lock after that.

She also wants something to be done for the women whose retirement age rose so suddenly and there was discussion about raising the retirement age being unfair on some groups of people who are not 'average' when it comes to length of life. Either she was being portrayed very differently yesterday or she was coming across differently. I know she has tried to raise the problems of state pension age of the women currently retiring so I imagine it may have been the former.

... because if a property is rented its care and maintenance is the responsibility of the landlord not the tenant. House owners do not get money to pay rent because they do not pay rent, that is fine, but they also get no help to maintain their property, which can be of considerable concern

I haven't seen that argument before M0nica and I can see where you are coming from. I do thing a basic 'living' pension would sort this out though.

I know the Australian pension is means tested 'Jalima' but they are still ensuring a minimum level of income. Some in this country seem to think that poverty serves a purpose and I cannot agree with that.

daphnebroon I did not use the word 'nice' anywhere in my post

So you do remember using it then?

It was a BTW(by the way M0nica, ) so you do remember using the the word nice in your post then?
Daphne This is a discussion about the state pension, not occupational pensions, whether done through purchased annuities or company final salary schemes..... and any protected pension is a nice one to have, however large or small

I believe Theresa May has just said there is no intention of doing this, so it's 'as we were' - at least for the time being.

Most of the countries that pay better pensions also have higher taxation and raised social security charges to pay for them.

One of the reasons that so many French people come over to London to establish new businesses is because the social security payments demanded up front for any new business in France are so onerous that it is a disincentive to entrepreneurial activity.

Gracesgran re your link to the pension paid in other countries, may I point out that in Australia the state pension is means-tested and those with a certain level in income in retirement or with a level of savings get absolutely nothing.

My very elderly relative gets a reasonably good basic state pension, however, cost of living is much higher than the UK, so that is all relative. Other relatives of retirement age get nothing at all because they have a certain level of savings which they are supposed to use to live on.

I am not sure about other countries in the list.

I am not sure if the administration of the Christmas bonus is much - it will surely just be set into the computerised payment system, very easy if it is straight into a bank account. However, they do always send a letter out about the fuel allowance which must be costly. If it a straightforward payment to everyone it might just as well be absorbed into the normal payments, and the fuel allowance too.
Do they still pay an extra 25p when a pensioner reaches 80? If so, that is ludicrous.

Sorry to hear that gononsuch that must have been a dreadful inconvenience. Internet shopping is the way to go - why venture out at all and be troubled by these inconsiderate people?

Gracesgran because if a property is rented its care and maintenance is the responsibility of the landlord not the tenant. House owners do not get money to pay rent because they do not pay rent, that is fine, but they also get no help to maintain their property, which can be of considerable concern.

In the past I have tried to get help for home owners on pension credit who had houses with leaking roofs, front doors that were so rotten they offered neither weather protection nor security or had dangerous wiring and there was no help available, or if there was any, under conditions that the homeowner could not meet.

whitewave I know and agreed with the conditions under which the triple lock was introduced and had no problems with it, but economic conditions were better then, and most people received regular salary rises and unemployment was falling and benefits for the unemployed were more generous. Circumstances have changed and if everyone else has had to suffer, why should we be spared?

If pension rises were tied to wage increases pensions would rise inline with the rest of the working population.

Daphne This is a discussion about the state pension, not occupational pensions, whether done through purchased annuities or company final salary schemes..... and any protected pension is a nice one to have, however large or small.

whitewave

I don't think Gordon Brown brought in the 'triple lock' my belief is it was the Lib Dem/Conservative government .

Oh and just as a BTW many people (DH included) saw their pension pot vastly reduced as a consequence of the "economic downturn" of 2008/9. About halved.
That was the period savings account interest rates dropped from around 5% to 0.5% too, double whammy.

It has been shaming and embarrassing during the years of austerity to see that while young people suffer, lost jobs, no pay rises, more and more job insecurity to see how we older people sat tight with our niceprotected pensions. 'We're all right, Jack

Beg to differ, M0nica (your post of 11.45.28)

Remember those at Pension Credit level are also entitled to get all their Council tax paid and, if they live in rented accommodation, all their rent paid, which is very unfair on poorer pensioners in owner occupied houses.

Why is that unfair M0nica. One has a need, the other doesn't. I think a 'living pension' would stop some dog in the manger folk feeling that helping those with less than they have been able to accumulate feeling hard done by so from that angle very worthwhile.

I think it is worth taking into account how we compare pension wise. We are certainly not particularly generous. This is a which report comparing us with 15 similarly placed counties

monica what do you think then of the original idea that pensions had fallen so far behind that the 2.5% was introduced to try to ensure pensions reached a more reasonable level after years of it being tied to RPI or CPI?
Governments of both colour were not willing to raise the pensions as they should have been until Brown tried to do so with the triple lock.

To take that away will almost certainly ensure that pension value falls year on year, and don't forget that we are the lucky generation. Future generations are not going to be able to be confident that their pension will be sufficient, and we have learned since Brexit how they can fall when the value of th pound drops.

I agree with Eloethan and DaphneBroon on this matter.If interest rates were much higher, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much, but as they are so very low,
Hardly worth having any savings,and unlike younger people now ( paying such low rates on mortgage) we paid a lot in the past.I think the triple lock is a good thing.

DaphneBroon I did not use the word 'nice' anywhere in my post. The suggestion is that when all the bells and whistles go, the money used to pay for them is spread out to all pensioners as a large rise on the basic pension, which would mean the basic pension going up to about £150 and the Pension Credit entitlement would rise to a figure between £175 and £200. Remember those at Pension Credit level are also entitled to get all their Council tax paid and, if they live in rented accommodation, all their rent paid, which is very unfair on poorer pensioners in owner occupied houses.

whitewave unfairness is unfairness whether sanctioned as government policy or not.

For the last eight years many of those in work have seen no pay rises at all despite the continued rise in inflation, many have lost their jobs and been forced to live on severely curtailed benefits or have had to accept detrimental cuts in their terms of employment. Meanwhile pensioners have continued to see their pension rise by the highest rate of wages, prices or 2.5%. Pensions have risen by over 20% in the last 8 years, while many others have had no pay rise at all.

If the triple lock is broken pensions will still be tied in to one of the three locks. In my opinion this should be wages, so that when the rest of the population feels the pain, so do we, and when times are good they benefit and so do we.

Yes that's right eleo the triple lock is to ensure that the pension continues to rise year on year until it reaches a reasonable rate. Nobody can say that the pension is generous or even adequate if you compare it with other European countries.

To say that the pensioner has benefited at the expense of the young is entirely wrong. The young have suffered at the hands of the government. The pensioner has received a year on year rise in line with government policy.

If the intention is to withdraw this then the government should make it clear that they are prepared to see pensions fall. Not to make it look as if as a result of cutting the 2.5% will ensure more money for the young, that is a disgraceful and deceitful way of going about it.

gononsuch Having read your later post re an OAP collapsing at the till, I'm wondering if you are just trying to wind everyone up. Nobody is that heartless, surely.

To be quite honest, I didn't know exactly what the difference is between the trip-lock and double-lock state pension and had to look it up.

It seems that with the triple-lock, pensions rise by the inflation rate, average earnings or 2.5%, whichever is highest. The double-lock would rise in line with prices or earnings, not inflation.

The reasoning behind it is that if we experienced deflation - with earnings and prices dropping - it would be unfair for pensioners to continue to receive 2.5%.

If state pensions were already at a point that was vaguely in line with average earnings, this might seem reasonable, but they are not. The state pension in this country in 2016 is £7,500 (I don't know if that includes SERPS or not) and I believe the average earnings figure is £26,500.

In Sweden the maximum state pension is just over £25,000, in Spain 26,630, in Germany £26,366 - only a few thousand below average earnings.

A study by the International Longevity Centre ranked Britain 21st out of 27 countries, and labelled our state pension “one of the least generous in Europe”.

I don't pay tax on my pensions but my husband pays a substantial amount. He does not resent it - he realises he is fortunate to receive enough pension to warrant paying tax. I find it incredible that someone who is comfortably off is so begrudging of those who, usually through no fault of their own, have very little to live on and are now threatened with even less.

I too have great sympathy for younger people, many of whom are really struggling. The answer to this is, in my view, not to make the lives of pensioners even more difficult but to raise the income tax level on high earners, simplify the tax system in order to close tax-dodging loopholes, and to collect tax from companies rather than allow them to dictate how much they are willing to pay. On top of that, some sort rent controls would also be of great assistance to young people.

Oh poor poor gononsuch to be inconvenienced by an old dear collapsing in front of you. I hope you stepped over her carefully, wouldn't want to soil those shoes of yours.
I am grateful that I found an entirely opposite reaction and the kindness of strangers when I came a similar cropper on a Northern Line train between Old Street and Euston a fortnight ago.

The thing is Monica our State Pension may be protected, but at somewhere just north of £100 per week , it is hardly "nice".
I know I shouldn't discuss other threads, but the food shopping thread showed remarkably few posts indicating that people are feeding themselves, plus heating a home, travel, paying for domestic maintenance which they might have been able to do themselves when younger, buy any clothes or household items on even £155 a week. It is what many younger people spend on a night out and just because we are retired does not exempt us from a need (?) to be adequately fed or kept warm.
Many of us coped through redundancies, periods of unemployment in the last 20 years and various economic downturns recessions, and that can slash any pension you had as well as writing off savings (don't mention interest rates on those) bour houses may hav been cheaper but mortgage interest rates were MUCH higher, and not every job was pensionable.
So while most of us will continue to make the best of it, as we have no other option, please don't saddle me or anybody with a guilt trip!

I was prepared to be outraged when I saw the headlines about Ros Altmann's comments, but having read the details, I'm not. Her suggestion is a double lock - that state pensions should go up by the same rate as salaries or prices, whichever is the higher. The third part of the triple lock (the 2.5% minimum guarantee) would be dropped. This is so that pensions would not rise out of proportion to other incomes during periods of deflation.

This seems fair enough to me. Though it's all academic, as I'm one of the WASPI women who won't have a state pension at all till I'm 66 anyway.

I am completely with Ros Altmann on this. It has been shaming and embarrassing during the years of austerity to see that while young people suffer, lost jobs, no pay rises, more and more job insecurity to see how we older people sat tight with our nice protected pensions. 'We're all right, Jack'

I have long advocated a straight state pension without any bells and whistles, no winter fuel payments, no free tv licenses, no bus passes, even no free prescriptions. These are insulting and demeaning to older people, suggesting that we are incapable of managing our money and need to have little sums 'protected' so we do get our prescriptions instead of spending the money on wine and high living.

In its place the money saved should be used to give all pensioners a one-off large increase in state pension, and then tie further pension rises to the trend in wages, so if our children struggle so do we. The government will save a packet in not having to administer all these various schemes. Bus companies will soon offer schemes equivalent to the Senior Citizens railcard. Those requiring regular medications can buy a annual season ticket, currently £104 a year

The Pension Credit scheme lower limit can be raised by the amount of the pension enhancement so that no-one is likely to lose out financially by the changes.

Yes, I just had a light bulb moment about her/him MOnica. No one can be that nasty.