State Pension Triple Lock

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

On the latter point, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that the state pension rose by over 50% under the last Labour Government and has risen by around 40% under this Government. I do not want to make an enemy of the right hon. Gentleman, because I know that he agrees with me; I read his comments in the Daily Express yesterday. Indeed, I suspect that he will agree with probably 90% of my speech—so much so that I was tempted to email it to him in advance of this debate, but I did not want to be removed from the Front Bench.

Let me make a bit of progress. The real-world impact in our constituencies of cutting the state pension again means more and more pensioners turning to food banks and more pensioners shivering under blankets in cold, damp homes, putting themselves at risk of hypothermia. It means more pensioners cutting back, at a time when they have already had to swallow a real-terms cut in the state pension of around £480. Breaking the promise on inflation uprating for next year amounts to a further real-terms cut in the value of the full state pension of £440. We are talking about a £900 cut, around £37 a month in the fixed incomes of Britain’s retirees; a cut in the fixed incomes of groups of the population who cannot easily earn a wage; a cut in fixed income when one in three relies solely on the state pension; and a cut that is punishing at the best of times, but is more devastating when prices are rising and energy bills are increasing.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that we are talking not only about a cut, but about the uncertainty that the Government have created over the weeks, with their U-turns upon U-turns? Pensioners do not know whether to trust this Government and they have no certainty, even despite what has been reported this morning.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

We have had continued mixed messaging from the Government, which is why today is an opportunity for Conservative Members to send a clear message to their constituents about their position on the triple lock.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

As I said in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), we all in this House, as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, have supported the triple lock. However, we need only google “Daily Mail” and “triple lock” to see that in recent days Government Ministers have been on the news saying things to suggest that it is under threat. On the Government side, it is clear that there is a desire among Back Benchers for the triple lock to stay, but I do not think it is very fair for pensioners to have to wait and do this hokey-cokey to hear what is going to happen.

In February 2021, when this House considered the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2021, the then Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), spoke in favour of that year’s triple lock increase as

“upholding our commitment to the country’s pensioners”.—[Official Report, 9 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 186.]

We know that by September of last year the Government had turned their back on that lock, implementing a double lock only. The hon. Member for Easington reminded us that that uprating of 3.1% means that when we discuss maintaining the triple lock now, it is not about keeping pensioners up to speed with the cost of living; they are already behind the cost of living as a result of that earlier U-turn.

We were told that the downgrading was just for one year. I said then that I was wary of trusting that the Government would keep that promise, and it increasingly seems that pensioners feel that way too. Many have said that this feels like a broken promise, and we are seeing different Ministers here giving different views. I know we are supposed to now wait nine days, but I do not accept that this is not a debate we should be having.

As the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) said, Opposition days are given to the official Opposition and the third party so that they can hold the Government to account. We are Opposition MPs; that is our job. When we are hearing from constituents about their anxieties regarding the triple lock and the energy price guarantee, it is right and proper that Opposition time be used to debate such issues. I must also say that I have also been present in this Chamber when the Government have tabled motions designed to trap the Opposition. This debate is part of what we do; it is part of how we oppose and how we get answers from the Government.

Away from politics, I want to pick up one message from a constituent who says:

“My wife is 80 and disabled and I am 81 and act as her full-time carer. We receive our bills for both gas and electricity on a monthly basis and the last 2 months have seen them triple-fold…keep in mind that these were summer-time readings. God only knows how we are to fare as things continue in this manner. Once again I plead with you to help in whatever way you can to save the Triple Lock.”

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, in its paper “Five Steps to Better Pensions: Time for a New Consensus”, highlights that pension inadequacy is an increasing issue. The state pension makes up the majority of most people’s retirement income, and given how sluggish wage growth has been in the last 15 years, it is now harder for people to make adequate pension savings. It is important that we keep the state pension to protect current and future pensioners from poverty. As the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) said, it is a social contract, and that is true for private pensions, too. We all know that there is not a pot—as a Scottish MP representing a UK party, I know there is not a pot—but we do put into pensions and national insurance on the understanding that when it comes our time to draw down, we can do so. We need to ensure that we do not break that social commitment and that social contract.

I conclude by saying that I believe firmly that the triple lock is about intergenerational fairness. If we devalue our state pension, we are also letting down young people and people of working age. Some of those of almost pension age will have seen the value of their pensions fall as a result of the recent economic turmoil, and for those people a state pension will never be more vital. For young people and people of working age, keeping the state pension viable now for those not retiring for decades to come is the right thing to do. Younger people face so many difficulties—on the housing ladder, and with increasing rents, the lowest levels of social mobility and insecure employment—so we need to ensure that we keep a pension for them to look forward to in the future.

I finish by turning to the words of Muriel, another of my constituents who has written to me. She asked:

“How are we to survive without being able to depend on our Government to do the right thing by us?”

Those are words for us all to keep considering.