The Department for Work and Pensions has been told to change a state pension rule, with no reason not to. The DWP has been urged to deal with the Triple Lock, the metric guaranteeing increases for all state pensioners. Amid the ballooning benefits bill, a columnist has urged the DWP that there is no longer any reason to avoid dealing with the triple lock.
Columnist Calls for Change
Zoe Williams, writing in the Guardian, explained: Why, when pension benefits and the state pension amount to £178bn annually – which is greater than the housing benefit, disability benefit and unemployment or low-income benefits bills combined – do we never talk about the triple lock?
She added: That electoral calculus may have made sense when the triple lock was introduced in 2011, along with the obvious benefit of protecting one group so the whole country wouldn’t unite against austerity. But as this generational imbalance reaches maturity, it is no longer rational.
Expert Backing
The Institute for Fiscal Studies backs this stance. Heidi Karjalainen, Senior Research Economist at the IFS, said: The Labour party manifesto in 2024 declared that it would keep the state pension triple lock and the government has recommitted to it for this parliament. But that does not mean it has to — or should — stay forever. A sensible approach would be to announce in this parliament a move away from the triple lock after the next election.
She continued: This could be a way for the government to signal its commitment to sustainable public finances by showing a willingness to take tough decisions for the long-term at the Budget. The longer we delay taking action, the more we bake in future cost pressures that will be harder to unwind. We’ve done enough of that already.
