Backseat Driver, Former PM Tony Blair Reckons The Triple-Lock...

Many pensioners have only the State pension and sometimes a small personal pension which puts them slightly above the threshold for receiving any other benefits.My own Mum fits that description, I don’t receive a pension yet.She worries every Winter about utility bills.

Graphite It is currently called triple lock for a reason, the locks are wages, 2.5%band CPI. I would limit it to one lock - wages. The fact that that has been the one used for the last few years is irrelevant. The other 2 locks were still in place but not needed.

The government then has Pension credit at its disposal to deal with any extra pressures put on poorer pensioners if CPI is higher.

But I think it absolutely unacceptable, when young people and families are struggling with rising prices and slower rising wages, that older people should get a free card to get extra money that will need to come ftom the same young people's incomes.

it should ... just be tied to the growth of annual earnings

I don’t understand what you are arguing.

For five of the last eight years, the State Pension increase has been based on average earnings growth. It would have been six from eight had the earnings element not been suspended when considering the lock for April 2022.

• April 2026 (4.8% increase): Based on Average Earnings Growth (May–July 2025).

• April 2025 (4.1% increase): Based on Average Earnings Growth (May–July 2024).

• April 2024 (8.5% increase): Based on Average Earnings Growth (May–July 2023).

• April 2023 (10.1% increase): Based on September 2022 CPI Inflation.

• April 2022 (3.1% increase): Based on September 2021 CPI Inflation (after suspending the earning element)

• April 2021 (2.5%) Minimum increase

• April 2021 (3.9% increase) Based on Average Earnings Growth (May–July 2020).

• April 2020 (2.6% increase) Based on Average Earnings Growth (May–July 2019).

Wage growth causes inflation whether:

* Cost push - businesses increase the price of goods and services to pay for wage increases, or

* Demand pull - more money in the economy chasing a limited supply of goods.

Pensioners on fixed incomes are exposed to the higher prices which follow from earnings growth.

Furthermore, when based on average earnings growth, the SP is not increased until a whole year after people have had those wage increases.

SP is paid in arrear, so even though the SP rises from the first Monday on or after the 6 April, the higher amount is not paid until May. Always playing catch up.

I have long thought it should go and just be tied to the growth of annual earnings, why should we do better than our children?

Pensioner poverty is a seprate issue best dealt with through ensionCreit, or, as it was more correctly known Minimum Income Guarantee.

'Back seat driver'.....describes Blair perfectly. Is he the one still pulling the strings...because Starmer is obviously acting under instructions from a higher authority.
I think perhaps someone in parliament reads Gransnet and is aware of the support the Labour party has from its members and doesn't want to lose it. (I don't include myself in that category as I think Tony Blair is responsible for much of the mess this country is in.)

Well if the government have said categorically that the triple lock will stay, you can rest assured it will go. Why would anyone believe a word they say ? How many times now have they said one thing and done another - too many.

It's the Tony Blair Think-tank, not the man himself. They have come up with various suggestions which the government have disagreed with and said categorically that they will keep the triple lock.