‘Triple lock’ to guarantee pension rise NOT affordable, Tory cabinet minister warns
THE "triple lock" guaranteeing a certain annual state pension rise is not affordable long term, a Tory Cabinet minister said today.
What is the triple lock on pensions?
New Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke did not rule out ending the system in just three years' time.
The Tories' general election manifesto proposed that after 2020, the rule that the pension rises each year by the higher of average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent, should be replaced by a double lock tied to inflation and earnings.
It also proposed to means-test the pensioner winter fuel allowance.
Both measures are opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party whose support Theresa May's minority government is seeking and they were not in the legislative programme set out in the Queen's Speech on Wednesday.
I don't think we sufficiently articulate the case for getting the debt down, because it's going to be passed onto future generations (which) is not fair
Mr Gauke told reporters at Westminster that the triple lock would stay until 2020 but must then be "reflected" on.
He said the triple lock had a "ratchet effect" because over time "it will mean that a greater and greater share of GDP goes to paying the state pension, even without any increases in pensioner numbers because that's just the way it works.
"Do I think that in 10, 20, 30 years' time, we will still have a triple lock?
"I cannot see in all honesty how we can."
Pressed on whether the Tories' could in two years' time reintroduce manifesto pledges the Queen's Speech left out, Mr Gauke said: "We will reflect on those measures and we haven't ruled anything out."
The former Treasury minister insisted tough decisions were still needed to get the public finances into balance because the deficit and debt remained too high.
Chancellor Philip Hammond has hinted since the election at an easing of austerity.
But Mr Gauke said he expected the benefits freeze to continue, and hinted the same for the public sector pay cap, as part of getting the nation back into the black.
He admitted the Conservative Party had failed in the election to connect with the younger voters who helped boost hardleft Jeremy Corbyn's vote so unexpectedly on June 8.
"We didn't do at all well with younger voters," he said.
"I don't think we sufficiently articulate the case for getting the debt down, because it's going to be passed onto future generations (which) is not fair."
The Tories had also failed to present their radical shift away from a system where older people had done better than others "in a way that won us any support from younger generations".
The party must work out "how to make the case for capitalism to people who don't have a lot of capital, and it's really important we get on the front foot on housing.
"There is an ambition to do that but it breeds an understandable degree of resentment where younger generations see that they don't have anything like the housing opportunities that their parents had."
He agreed with Mr Hammond that the Tories should also have done more in the campaign to defend their approach to a strong economy and free markets, and to dissect Labour's prospectus.
The row over the unexpected proposal to make some older people pay more for care at home also proved the need to prepare people for big reforms.
He warned that without a majority it would be hard to make major reforms that required legislation to be passed.
But work could be done to prepare and win over the public to future changes.
He vowed in his own department to ensure the new Universal Credit system of benefits fulfilled its potential to transform people's ability to get and keep jobs and to progress in them.