Labour Party Confirms Keeping Triple Lock for State Pension

The Labour Party has confirmed that it will keep the triple lock for state pensions if it is elected to government.

The State Pension Triple Lock

State pension increases each year by the higher of:

• Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation.
• Average Wage Inflation.
• 2.5% pa.

This is a political hot potato as successive governments have failed to address the state pension system, an ageing population with more pensioners and less workers to pay national insurance contributions to fund those pensions.

State pension age seems to be continually increasing but not much else has been done.  The conservatives have even reduced national insurance contributions leaving a ‘bomb’ for Labour if they need to increase it.

Comment

Whilst both the current Conservative government and the Labour party (government in waiting) have committed to the triple lock, we see this as politics and vote chasing rather than making sound financial decisions on the social welfare system for the UK.

We need to pay more.  Both Red, Blue and Coalition governments have failed to tackle the issue since the 1960s.  Politicians should hang their heads in shame.  Stop being so desperate to secure the ageing population’s vote.

Cross Party Committee?  We suggest the question of decisions for state pensions and later life social care should be removed from the politcal agenda (as it has failed it) and make it a cross party decision with a national referendum on how this is funded.  These issues are too big and too important to be left to vote chasers at election time.  The same could be said for government debt and borrowing.

Whilst we have a democracy in the UK, we suggest it is a failed democracy (as many others are around the globe) as the public are pursuaded one way or another by ‘silver tongued’ cavaliers from all political parties rather than by fact.  Decisions are then justified by the elected government of the day that they already have a mandate from the people to make all decisions when clearly, issues may only have been marginally covered with the usual ‘smoke and mirrors’ in any manifesto they got elected on.

Big issues that affect all people, should be decided by the people with neutral ‘pros and cons’  factsheets for any changes/actions supplied by a Cross Party Committee and voted in/out using a referendum in the same way as is done in Switzerland.