Tamper with the triple lock and the universal state pension at your peri

18th January 2025

And we thought that the campaigners in favour of scrapping the Triple Lock had slunk away to lick their wounds, for at least the rest of this Parliament; no such luck unfortunately.

Both major parties had promised in their manifestos that the Lock was secure for at least five years, but it has only taken 6 months for this vital safeguard to come under pressure again.

Labour has just appointed as its Pensions Minister, one Torsten Bell MP, former Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation and a fierce opponent of the Triple Lock.

Bell led this think-tank for many years, leading architects of the false narrative that pensioners have never had it so good and need to be squeezed.

Appointing a poacher as the gamekeeper of pensions is no mistake. It shows that Labour's long-term aim is to attack the state pension system, either by abolishing the Triple Lock or by means testing the pension, or both.

When we needed all Opposition politicians to stand firm in support of older people, up steps Kemi Badenoch to pour oil on troubled waters.

She has appeared to suggest that the Triple Lock itself should be means-tested. This is a naïve and incoherent policy.

Read the full article in the Express