'Triple lock has had its day - pensioners need protection but so do generations left with the bill'

The triple lock was created for a good reason. After years in which the state pension had fallen behind wages and living standards, Britain needed a guarantee that retirement would not mean watching the rest of the country disappear over the horizon. But a policy designed to repair yesterday’s injustice cannot simply be left on autopilot for ever. Under the triple lock, the state pension rises every year by whichever is highest; inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. That sounds reasonable until you look at how it works over time. A sudden burst of inflation produces a large increase. That rise becomes permanent. If wages then jump the following year, pensioners receive another increase based on earnings. The system takes the highest figure each time, but never adjusts downwards when economic conditions change. Year after year, those increases compound. With state pension spending already expected to hit £154 billion annually - just under half of the welfare budget - the consequences for the children and grandchildren of pensioners now are impossible to ignore. Britain is also getting older. More people will reach retirement; they will rightly expect to live longer, and there will be proportionately fewer workers paying the taxes needed to support them. None of this is an argument for impoverishing pensioners - quite the opposite. The uncomfortable truth is that the triple lock is also a remarkably blunt way of tackling pensioner poverty. Every claimant gets the percentage increase regardless of whether they are struggling to heat their home or sitting on substantial savings, investments and private pensions. Meanwhile, some of the poorest pensioners in Britain are still counting every pound. Many face punishing energy bills, high food prices, and housing costs on incomes that leave precious little room for anything to go wrong. Those people need greater protection. The answer should therefore be reform, rather than simply swinging an axe at the state pension. A government could guarantee that pensions continue to keep pace with earnings and protect retirees when inflation surges, while ending the mechanism that automatically selects the most expensive of the three measures each year. The money saved over the long term could help provide stronger support for pensioners who genuinely need it, including better targeted payments and a determined effort to ensure everyone entitled to Pension Credit actually receives it. There is also a question of fairness. Younger workers are being asked to fund an increasingly expensive promise that they themselves cannot know will exist when they retire. Their wages are not triple locked. Neither are most working-age benefits. Britain should honour the contribution pensioners have made throughout their working lives. But protecting pensioners and protecting taxpayers are not competing ambitions. A sustainable system should guarantee dignity in retirement while concentrating the greatest help on those with the least. Keeping the triple lock unchanged indefinitely does neither job particularly well.