Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of what the potential rate of the basic state pension would have been in financial year 2022-23 had the earnings link not been ended in 1980.

We do not hold the information required to answer this request. The Office for National Statistics are responsible for estimates of earnings growth. A time series consistent with the Average Weekly Earnings growth measure used for benefit uprating is only available from 2001 onwards.