Four in ten British voters support making the pension triple lock permanent, according to new research from AJ Bell. It is highly unlikely this will happen, says the investment platform’s director of public policy Tom Selby, because “the natural long term result of such a move would be that, eventually, the state pension would reach and then exceed average earnings in the UK – an outcome that would clearly not be affordable for any government”. But with such public support for the lock, “cold political calculus” will almost certainly ensure it will also survive under any government. “In order to set a path for the lock to be eventually retired, the starting point needs to be to set out what it aims g to achieve and establish a path to reach that goal. At that point, the promise can be shifted to either a single or double lock based on earnings and/or inflation, “with a strong argument for smoothing out these measures over time to avoid the unpredictable spikes we have seen in recent years”, he argues. “This would at least provide a degree of stability, giving people a better idea of what the state will provide and from when, and what they need to build up for themselves to fund the retirement they want. But that first step of acknowledging the triple lock simply cannot exist forever may be the hardest.”
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