Is breaking the triple lock on pensions the key to balancing Britain’s books?

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is due to deliver his autumn statement, a sort of interim Budget, on 22 November, and already the media are carrying leaks about what’s in store – no substantial tax cuts, higher borrowing costs – and now, another heavy hint that the “triple lock” that boosts the state pension every year is to be “tweaked” or come “under attack”, depending on the various accounts. An exacerbating factor in the increase in old age poverty was that “proud” or frail pensioners often didn’t claim the means-tested benefits they were entitled to. The actual saving from the adjustment to the definition of earnings or wages is necessarily quite modest, and in some years won’t make any difference anyway – say if inflation stays relatively high and exceeds wage growth, or if both wage growth and price rises are minimal, in which case the 2.5 per cent guaranteed minimum rise will kick in. Because of the size of the grey vote, the triple lock will survive in some form, even if it’s tweaked, trimmed and downgraded, possibly to a “double lock”.