Could time be up for the triple lock?

An almost totemic policy, the triple lock – and its more recent evolutions into the quadruple lock and triple lock plus – has long posed an undeniable and unavoidable conundrum for the Conservative Party. But it is one that its MPs, staff and younger activists are starting to acknowledge: the triple lock is unsustainable, and it is now up for grabs. 

There has been a trickle of public statements alluding to the problem. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said it is “a mathematical reality” that “in the very, very long term, it is unsustainable”. At one stage Kemi Badenoch appeared to open the door to means testing but then quickly said “‘no’ to looking at the triple lock”.

Privately, however, there has been a larger wave of new thinking.

First introduced by the coalition government in 2011 – to have the state pension go up each year by either 2.5 per cent, inflation, or earnings growth, whichever is highest – as George Osborne tried to wrestle with pensioner poverty, it has since ballooned. (In fifty years time we are set to spend more on benefits and healthcare for over-65s than we now spend on everything together.)

At the last general election it was something the Conservatives failed to recognise, plowing  ahead with the inclusion of the triple lock plus in the manifesto, which proposed taking the rules on state pensions and applying them to pensioners’ personal allowance too. 

It is little wonder the average Conservative voter was 63-years-old at the last election. But – with one in eight of those 63-year-olds set to be dead by the time the next election comes around – there are some in the party, including at senior levels, who recognise that it is time for change. They are just not sure they will ever be the ones to have the political confidence to do so.

It is quite the marked change to now have shadow ministers telling me that “it is very healthy that we are debating this”.

One Tory MP says: “When we started this, if you looked at poverty in the country, it was pensioners. That’s just not true anymore… now there’s a lot of working age poverty, including people who are in work.

“But in political terms we can’t touch the triple lock. It is as simple as that. The Labour Party can. It is like abolishing NHS England. Imagine the howls of outrage. But if they did, we would never , ever reinstate it, is my thinking.”

There is a bit of an acceptance, perhaps a derelcition of duty, from those in the party who think they need Labour to be the ones to take action. “We rather hope that the government will get rid of it and then we will state a position,” a senior Tory adds. 

One shadow minister who credits it with “amazing achievements”, especially when it comes to bringing people out of poverty, even recognises there is a sustainability problem.

In a volatile time, are unlimited parameters on inflation right? And as we continue towards demographic challenges, with an aging population, can we afford it? The answer is pretty clear: not really.

Reform of the triple lock could take many different approaches. Options flagged by figures in the parliamentary party include looking at a double lock, only increasing the state pension in line with wages in the future, or implementing a flat rate of pension relief.

The problem is a political one. If Labour does scrap the triple lock, it is an easy critique for the Tories to pursue. If the Tories are to suggest reform, it is an easy one for the Liberal Democrats to make a crude effort on and position themselves as the party of pensioners.

Even in her last PMQs, Liz Truss declared a commitment to keep the triple lock after intense media speculation earlier in the day; the strength of feeling towards sticking with the policy buying her another 12 hours in office before further mistakes with the vote on fracking led to her downfall that evening.

It explains why the Leader of the Opposition’s (Loto) office is cautious towards moving against it, but significantly doesn’t permanently rule out taking another look at the triple lock. “It’s not on the table for us right now,” one Loto soure says, “the long term thinking on tax and spending and fiscal measures and so on is only just getting started”.

But as the senior Tory puts it plainly: “It’s rather difficult for us, but we’ve got to find another way of reducing the amount of cost of pensions. You can try to do it as intergenerational fairness… the right thing to do is to accept the abolition of the triple lock. The best thing would be to do something else, to find a way of helping people and get people on side with it.”

Either way, some of the party’s more ambitious figures say it should not be looked at in isolation as it is part of a bigger question of how to rebalance generational inequalities.

“The intergenerational contract is broken,” one Tory MP says – and it is causing economic and social damage. The list is many: an unsustainable marginal tax rate on workers, high immigration, a lack of housebuilding and soaring childcare costs. “Something needs to change,” they add.

“If you sort that out, the economy would grow, but it also gets that contract back on its feet, which makes it more justifiable.”

A shadow minister cites a recent occasion where a young person told them: “I hope one day I can be almost as well off as my parents.” That was, according to the MP, “one of the most depressing things I’ve heard”.

There is some optimism when it comes to the package Badenoch and her Loto team are creating. “In terms of correction I think they get that we’re going to have to do things that are quite radical and quite different,” a Tory MP says.

One shadow minister: “We need to have an offer that is about the next generation and taking us into the next century. We’ve got 75 years left until the next century and we need to address: What do you want the UK to be?”

Having a stake in the economy as early as possible is key and that’s everything from a job to savings to starting pensions early, but it requires a revamp and a bigger proposition from the party.

The same shadow minister is convinced that their average age of voter will “improve significantly” next time, but without bold offerings it’s a desire that can’t be guaranteed. Some of the thoughtfulness and questioning attitude that is going on privately within the parliamentary party will eventually need to come out into the open. It could just attract some people under the age of 63.