Triple lock replacement must protect pensioners from poverty

The model proposed to replace the triple lock must therefore guarantee protection for the poorest pensioners. This includes people less likely to have private pension provision – women, Disabled people, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and those with long-term health conditions. Reform must be carefully planned and introduced with sufficient communication and notice to avoid pushing more older people into poverty. 

Since the pandemic, record numbers of people have been out of work before state pension age, reducing their ability to save in the run up to retirement. Final salary schemes are far less common, while automatic enrolment has not yet enabled many people approaching retirement to build substantial savings. Future generations are also likely to reach retirement with significant housing costs, as a much higher proportion will be renting or continuing to pay a mortgage.  

As the population ages, these issues cannot be addressed by looking at the triple lock in isolation. The Pensions Commission is due to report next year with a wider review of retirement income. The government must heed their recommendations and consider the reforms needed to employment, private and workplace pensions, and housing costs to ensure that the new uprating system doesn’t push more pensioners into poverty.  

Much of the discussion around the triple lock has been used to stoke intergenerational conflict. Too often, it is presented as a competition between younger and older generations, as though supporting pensioners must inevitably come at the expense of working-age people. That helps no one. Today's workers are tomorrow's pensioners. 

The government must act now to provide the evidence that this alternative system will achieve that. Until then the triple lock remains an essential safeguard.