the state pension is likely to increase by 4.7 per cent,<\/a> in line with average earnings, it was confirmed on Tuesday. This would take the full new state pension to \u00a3241.05 a week. <\/p>\nThe news has prompted fresh calls for reform from some quarters. David Gauke, a former treasury minister and work and pensions secretary, told The i Paper: \u201cMaintaining the triple lock is not affordable.\u201d He backed a recent proposal from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that once the state pension has hit a certain percentage of average earnings, the triple lock should be abandoned and that percentage kept stable instead.<\/p>\n
Gauke added: \u201cI think that is something Rachel Reeves should announce at her Budget as a measure to reassure the bond markets of the long-term sustainability of public finances. She could then challenge the other parties to back her or be exposed as lacking fiscal credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image_7ed3dc.png\")
Rachel Reeves will lead another Budget this November<\/p>\n
Willem Buiter, an economist and former member of the Bank of England\u2019s monetary policy committee, said: \u201cThe UK\u2019s triple lock on state pensions is fiscally irresponsible \u2013 and indeed idiotic.\u201d He suggested indexing the state pension to CPIH, a measure of inflation which takes housing costs into account \u2013 which would keep its value stable in real terms.<\/p>\n
These views are privately shared by a number of MPs \u2013 but in a sign of how politically toxic it might be to scrap the popular policy, none of those who spoke to The i Paper on the issue would agree to be named.<\/p>\n
One veteran Conservative MP said: \u201cThe triple lock has been a very successful policy for raising pensioners out of poverty and it has been possible because the state pension age has been increased meaningfully. The two go hand in hand. But it can\u2019t continue indefinitely as mathematics means that eventually pensioners would be paid more than average incomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another MP, who serves on the Commons Treasury Committee, added that the triple lock could stay \u201cfor a bit longer\u201d but warned it was \u201ccompletely financially unsustainable in the long run\u201d, saying: \u201cSomething has to give in the country\u2019s fiscal position and this could be a good place to look.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Liberal Democrat backbencher said: \u201cThe UK has a low state pension compared to other major economies, so we do need to ratchet it up. However, the way in which it currently does is extremely volatile and not helpful to fiscal management. We will also, at some point, achieve something that looks like parity with our peers and the justification for continuing to ratchet up at pace will then fade.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Government is committed to keeping the triple lock at least until the next general election, and Labour insiders have refused to countenance the idea of scrapping it in future. Pat McFadden, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, said: \u201cThis Government is committed to maintaining the triple lock for the course of this parliament\u2026 That\u2019s a commitment from the Government to the United Kingdom\u2019s pensioners to maintain the value of the state pension, and that\u2019s something that we said we\u2019d do at the election, and something that we will keep to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Webb, who was pensions minister when the triple lock came in to force, commented: \u201cIt would be a huge step to scrap the triple lock during the course of this parliament. Not only would this break a clear manifesto commitment, but the triple lock has been repeatedly deployed by the Government as a defence against criticism over changes to winter fuel payments.\u201d He also pointed out that the short-term savings from any change would be limited, with nearly all the money saved falling well outside the five-year window used by the Treasury to set its borrowing rules.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties tend to be equally supportive of the policy. Asked whether he is willing to revisit it in future, the Conservatives\u2019 Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has said that any savings should come from cutting working-age benefits. In an interview with The i Paper this week, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: \u201cWe are so incredibly proud of the pensions triple lock as a policy.\u201d Only Reform UK has yet to commit to keeping it, with Nigel Farage saying that the party has not yet had time to consider the issue.<\/p>\n
Treasury civil servants have in the past been reluctant to suggest change because they know it would be politically unacceptable, according to a former Conservative adviser who said: \u201cThey hated it, but never really pushed back in any serious way. It would have fallen on deaf ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Dales, the chief UK economist at Capital Economics, concluded: \u201cFrom an economics point of view, you wouldn\u2019t have it as it\u2019s a commitment to raise pensions in line with inflation or by more. In other words, it\u2019s very costly. But it\u2019s the politics that really matter. There\u2019s a trade-off between saving money and alienating some potential voters. That trade-off changes if it becomes more expensive due to higher inflation. But my guess is the politics will remain more important to the Chancellor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Economists say the triple lock is becoming increasingly unaffordable but there is little political appetite for any change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4178,4174,4175,14354,2221,8182,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-147940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-pensions","11":"tag-personal-finance","12":"tag-personalfinance","13":"tag-politics-long-read","14":"tag-state-pension","15":"tag-state-pension-triple-lock","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}