The triple lock has done tremendous work in lifting millions of pensioners out of poverty since it was introduced in 2010. It does this by lifting the pension each year by earnings, inflation or 2.5 percent, whichever is highest.
It’s often called a pledge but as pensioners have discovered to their cost, the triple lock isn’t set in stone.
If it was, pensioners would have received a pay rise of around 8.3 percent in April 2022, in line with wages.
However, during his stint as Chancellor, Rishi Sunak decided that earnings had been skewed by pandemic lockdowns, and refused to pass on the increase.
So instead, pensioners got 3.1 percent just as inflation started to skyrocket.
They got some relief in April this year, though, when the state pension increased by 10.1 percent, in line with last September’s inflation figure.
That beat April’s inflation figure of 8.7 percent and is notably better than July’s inflation figure of 6.8 percent.
Most people have assumed that next year’s state pension would rise in line with inflation again, but that now seems unlikely.
It’s the September figure that counts and by then consumer prices may have fallen below six percent. At the same time, wages are rocketing at the highest rate since records began in 2001.
That’s good news for workers, offering them some relief from the cost of living crisis. It’s good news for pensioners, too.
Or at least it should be.
The triple lock uses earnings growth for the three months to July, which is published next month.
As Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon points out: “If earnings growth next month stays at the latest figure of 8.2 percent, state pensioners will be guaranteed this level of increase next April.”
When the state pension hike comes into force next April inflation could be falling towards four percent.
Once again, this confirms just how important the triple lock is for pensioners, and how much damage scrapping it would do.
It doesn’t mean that state pensioners will be lavished with riches, though. Even if the new state pension does rise from a maximum of £10,600 this year to £11,469 next year, that’s still scarcely enough to live on.
Especially since many who do not qualify for the maximum amount, while older pensioners on the basic state pension can get £2,000 less.
But it will mitigate the worst effects of the cost-of-living crisis. Which is where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt come into it.
There are plenty of people in HM Treasury and beyond who would like to see an end to the state pension triple lock, because they think it is unaffordable.
It will cost the government £135billion by 2025. That’s more than the UK’s total spend on education, the Home Office and defence
The Daily Express has been one of the triple lock’s doughtiest defenders and we’re rolling up our sleeves and ready to fight for it again.
READ MORE: State pension set to rocket as elderly handed extra £72 a month
There’s an old left-wing joke that if voting changed anything, they’d ban it.
That certainly applies to the triple lock. As far as pensioners are concerned, it has changed an awful lot and for the better. No wonder they want to suspend it.
Or scrap it altogether.
There are murmurings that Sunak could suspend the triple lock for a second time next April, by ditching the earnings element again.
We’re being softened up for it.
Pensioners have one thing in their favour, though. There is an election coming.
The elderly are more likely to vote than any other age group and that’s a good thing, because neither Sunak more Labour leader Keir Starmer will want to upset them in the run-up to the polling day.
What happens afterwards is a different matter, though. We’ll have to fight the battle for the triple lock again and again. As I said, life goes in cycles.
