The campaign to end the triple lock for state pensions is bizarre. The Bank of England loses billions more on bad and needless bond sales yet the establishment that wants to mug the pensioners pretends the losses are not happening. Well off pensioners drawing index linked public sector pensions propose making those relying more on the state pension worse off whilst ignoring the collapse of public sector productivity this decade costing taxpayers more billions. Many of the enthusiastic triple lock abolitionists urge we spend and waste more and more money on net zero subsidies and paying renewable generators to switch off for lack of grid. The triple lock to update pensions to cope with the rising cost of living has been a good policy to cut pensioner poverty. Better off pensioners pay tax on the pension. This would be a small cut for the next few years with a big political price.
The UK’s run away public expenditure owes little to the triple lock and much to the burgeoning welfare bill as hundreds of thousands are given sicknotes for life at a very young age and as the state writes off many people with mild mental ill health conditions that work might alleviate. I have set out tens of billions of relatively easy cuts across government, and the Conservative party have published a plan for £47 bn of reductions without touching the state retirement pension. There are better, bigger and easier ways of cutting state spending.
Mr Lawson embarked on an unwarranted attack on me for supporting the triple lock without giving me any warning or right to reply. His own article began with a vivid and accurate account of how Baroness May’s Manifesto for the 2017 election wiped out a strong Conservative lead in the polls with its attack on pensions and pensioners as if he understood the public mood. He then switched to attacking me for being illogical for consistently understanding the public mood on this issue. I distanced myself from the 2017 Conservative Manifesto in the election and promised my electors to speak out against the worst features of it.
Mr Lawson and the establishment choir against the triple lock never mention that the pension is a Contributory benefit. It is an entitlement based on a person’s contributions. 76% of all National Insurance contributions are paid into the National Insurance Fund. The balance part pays for the NHS. The Fund has a duty to pay the pensions with their annual uprating out of the NI money paid in. If the fund falls short the government has to top it up from general taxes or increase the contribution rate. If the fund is in surplus the surplus stays with the fund. The government would need to amend the law to raid the fund for other purposes.
When they say the triple lock pension is unaffordable they ignore the fact the fund is in healthy surplus. The Government Actuary forecasts a large and growing surplus for the next five years. It means of course the deeply damaging increase in National Insurance contributions destroying jobs introduced by Rachel Reeves was not needed. The surplus in the Fund is heading to £160 bn. To divert this money a government would need to legislate to remove the contributory principle and abolish the fund, making the pension a welfare benefit paid for out of general taxation. The reason retired people do not pay National Insurance contributions is to avoid taking part of their pensions away in an absurd money go round. The critics of the triple lock usually call National Insurance contributions Nics as if they were an ordinary general tax.
Mr Lawson is right to say the triple lock can be changed by changing the law. This however represents bad faith for all those paying contributions over the last two decades with a promise that this would entitle them to a triple lock pension. He objects that the National Insurance fund is not an endowment fund like a company or personal pension. He ignores the fact that it is a pay as you go fund, based on the principle that the working generation pays for the retired on the basis their children will pay for them, with the state requiring all to pay during their working years to qualify and to be fair to all.
The best argument to keep the triple lock is to build some integrity in politics, to get the out of touch often wrong establishment to understand the public mood. The main parties supported the triple lock to get MPs elected in 2024. They need to keep their word for this Parliament. I think it unlikely parties serious about wanting to win next time would think it a good idea to raid the National Insurance fund for other purposes or to legislate to destroy the most important contributory principle. Integrity and understanding the public mood matter more than Mr Lawson’s logic.
September 15, 2026
I am normally fully supportive of John’s views but on this ( and I am a beneficiary) I think that he is wrong .
Reply Why am I wrong? If a party or government wants to remove the triple lock and get rid of the National Insurance fund they can do so, but need to explain their broken promise and propose the necessary legislation. Surely politicians should keep their promises? There are plenty of easier ways of saving much more government spending as I regularly set out. Why did the parties adopt and support the triple lock?
September 15, 2026
The fund is owned by those who contributed or are contributing to it.
The Government would need to legislate to make legal robbing them of their fund. Why not therefore, rob the owners of much richer funds?
If some robbery, murder, covering of faces is legal, then there is no argument for maintaining any rule of law.
When the Government IS the GANG, we live in a criminal state.
September 15, 2026
We certainly live in a two tier criminal state in many ways. Why no criminal inquiry into the absurdly dangerous and ineffective pushers of the covid vaccines why so little action on the rape gangs?
September 15, 2026
It is rather irritating when people just say “you are wrong” without saying why they think this so you can reply to explain to them.
So Kemi Badenoch will ‘abolish inheritance tax’ if she wins next election. A good policy to have it is a hugely damaging doom loop law.
But “if” prob. seems to be at circa a 5% chance of a Tory overall majority. Also will she do it day one on or after 5 years for it to be revered by the following government a month or two later?
Osborne promised £1 million threshold about 18 years back it remains at £325k today (now worth just circa £200k) so how is Kemi going to convince us the Tories would deliver or even try to deliver this time?
Reply This policy has not yet been adopted or announced. Getting rid of taxes is a good idea as long as spending cuts are identified to pay for such changes. The firm tax pledge so far is on Stamp Duty with more to come
September 15, 2026
Stamp Duty drives property inflation because to recover the original cost you need to realise up to 15% more than the headline purchase price, and then the ratchet ratchets on an on.
Eventually the Government has taken the equal of the value of the property and still owns it’s ‘golden share’.
This is effective nationalisation of the property market.
September 15, 2026
Also hit by the CGT without any indexation for not PPR props and Osborne’s moronic attack on interest deductions for rented properties so tax is due on profits you have not even made. Tax at over 100% even worse than Denis Healey’s 98% thanks Osborne!
So if you want to let out your property and rent a similar property elsewhere to take up a new job you lose out hugely in taxes and agents fees and risks in recovery of the property. But if you sell and buy a new one loads of other costs and stamp duty. Now little point in buying unless you are sure you will be staying for perhaps 10 years and no one can be “sure” of this.
September 15, 2026
To reply:- IHT is a huge reason for wealth people to leave the country, or to invest less efficiently or not to move to, invest in or bring wealth the UK or indeed bother to build up wealth at all. LABOUR have mad matters far worse with the new 20% IHT of trading companies and farms.
Over say 20years UK taxes (all of them) them + Inflation and 40% IHT on death can easily take 95% of your wealth off you in the UK. Unless you like spending loads of time and money with tax planners best avoid the UK. Your say 10% return reduce to perhaps 6% after tax for 20 years then inflation at say 4% the. 40% loss on death – it is hard even to keep pace with inflation post tax even if you investment go well.
September 15, 2026
The maths is typically £1m X1.06^20*0.6=1.924 million for you. Thus you are nearly nearly £4 million down due to the government taxes and IHT.
Or with no tax £1m X1.1^20=6.727 million.
Yet they still want another wealth tax on top!
September 15, 2026
Milton Friedman famously said, “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible“ – me too as people and businesses, on average, invariable spend it so much more wisely and much more efficiently too. Hard not to with these deluded, doom loop, tax to death, net zero loons in charge.
September 15, 2026
I see the BoE is about to sell £100 billion of Bonds at a loss indemnified by the taxpayer. Neither the US or Brussels does this. This shortfall would cover the triple lock and extra defence spending.
It’s almost as though the BoE has It’s own agenda.
September 15, 2026
IW, I guess by selling the bonds and effectively lowering their price giving the owners an increased rate of interest it saves them having to increase the Bank Rate. It seems quite devious and you have to wonder who is in the background.
I assume this Lawson chap our host talks about is Dominic, son of Nigel, who in the late 1980s famously tried shadowing the Deutsch Mark by cutting the Bank Rate with a view to joining the ERM, and probably the subsequent Euro and all things lovely in the EU, until having a Damascene conversion later in life.
September 15, 2026
Because by 2030 it will add another £15biilion to the already ‘out-of-control’ Welfare bill .The whole welfare bill needs culling ,including the Triple Lock
September 15, 2026
The triple lock is attached to the State Pension Fund – nothing to do with the Welfare Bill – did you not read JRs post?
You should, it would stop you making a fool of yourself.
September 15, 2026
Look. If politicians kept their promises Cameron would have taken us out of the EU with no deal, we would only have a few thousand immigrants p.a., and frankly pensions would be paid at 65 years. It’s a non-starter.
Why are you so ravaged about a very recent triple lock, but not about the broken promise made to me 50 odd years ago that my state pension would be paid at 65?
September 15, 2026
INDEED plus the Tories should have ditched Labour’s racist equality act and the botched devolution and the climate change act. plus not pissed away £600 billion on net harm Covid measures.
September 15, 2026
Like my self I was in a job that didn’t give me a pension so went without and put it to buying my home to live in, unlike the politicians and city workers nowadays who get gold plated pensions and the state pension is peanuts to them, so keeping the triple lock makes one hell of difference to
the spare money I have and many other like myself and would be political suicidal to
scrap it , just saying
September 15, 2026
I think you’ve hit on something many forget, or as with the young, never knew or realised.
Once upon a time folk in ordinary average or low pay jobs did not have private pensions, or work place pensions.
They were led to believe that was what their NI and taxes were being paid for.
Those that could buy a home did so, and many saved what they could when they could.
There is a view among many of the younger generation that today’s pensioners have somehow robbed them of everything, and had it easy.
They seem to believe they are all off on world cruises etc. a couple of times a year, courtesy of any taxes the young pay.
September 15, 2026
@Michelle – the Country, its People were sold the concept of a National Insurance. Which reasonable it was interpreted as a ‘fund’ you personally paid into like other such funds – just compulsory. Unfortunately the UK Parliament had other ideas, they would be in control, and they would only pay out based on what had just been paid in, in any given year. It was never to be a fund that grew by anything more than the increase of the population that paid in. To me that the long term flaw
September 15, 2026
DOMINIQUE Lawson talks of INCREASED longevity. This actually has decline by about 3% since the Covid “vaccines”, the Covid NHS shutdown fiasco and general incompetence. Anyway inflation is likely to exceed 2.5% for some time so this element of the triple lock is rather irrelevant currently anyway.
Still Lawson is as his father was a climate realist so he gets that right.
September 15, 2026
ALSO this government is grabbing back much of the state pension in energy market rigging taxes, council tax, residents parking charges and visitors parking permits, loss of heating allowances for many (even after the U turn), and now the holiday hotel taxes on top of VAT to come too…
September 15, 2026
It now cost me about £25 a day for a residents day pass at my relative flat in Camden. THIS even if the car is unused for the week plus ULEZ each day if used and the other motorist mugging traps to avoid too. Or you pay for rip off train and tubes so you can watch all the youngsters and migrants vaulting the tube barriers all ignored by staff.
September 15, 2026
I was never an admirer of Dominic Lawson; I find his writing turgid, opinionated and tedious, boring and repetitive. He is jumping on the anti-triple lock campaign currently being waged by those who will not have to live on the state pension in retirement.
John Redwood has frequently written in support of the triple lock, here and elsewhere. His arguments in favour are strong and he has my support, for what it’s worth.
Lawson is part of the failed fossil fuel lobby. He is a prominent climate change sceptic who frequently uses his columns to attack the UK’s climate targets, green energy transitions, and environmental policies. Lawson’s stance ignores dangerous tipping points – such as the melting of permafrost or ice sheets- which will trigger irreversible, runaway climate changes.
He has written about nimby “public pushback” against green infrastructure, arguing that while people support the concept of net zero, they oppose the giant wind turbines or pylons that “ruin” local landscapes.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and global economic bodies warn that failing to transition will lead to catastrophic costs from extreme weather, property damage, food insecurity, wildfires and supply chain collapses. Patently, this is already happening
Onshore wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in UK history, consistently undercutting new fossil fuel plants by substantial margins. And don’t go on about “subsidies” there are none.
September 15, 2026
Wind and solar are often claimed to be far cheaper, but this ignores the costs of the backup power necessary due to their being unreliable in nature. Our electricity costs nearly 2x that of the US and over 4x that of China, and has not shown any sign of getting cheaper as renewables have increasingly been added to the grid…
September 15, 2026
Is that you Dave Paulden, aka Polanski, practising your Green Party Manifesto?
This bunch of ‘global economic bodies’ do they intend to do anything about China or India and their fossil fuel guzzling?
So no subsidies to Green Energy and we’ve all got cheaper electric and all the Green Energy companies are doing everything on a not for profit basis because they’re good people who want to save the planet and help their fellow man.
Dear Lord above.
There is quite a good website called ‘not a lot of people know that’
It might help calm your fears that you won’t be engulfed in a wildfire, or drowned by melting ice caps any time soon.
September 15, 2026
PS, the real name is Zak Polensky – the assumed name, to sound British is Dave Pauldon.
I’m in favour of people sticking to their real names so we know who they are.
September 15, 2026
SG
Your claim there are no subsidies for renewables is ridiculous.
Just do an internet search on ” subsidies for renewables UK” have a read, and re educate yourself.
September 15, 2026
“Onshore wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in UK history, consistently undercutting new fossil fuel plants by substantial margins. And don’t go on about “subsidies” there are none.”
Complete and utter drivel on every level!
September 15, 2026
Can you clear up for me which Lawson you are referring to. AI cannot decide. Copilot tells me it is the late former chancellor. Gemini tells me it is the Mail journalist.
Reply The journalist
September 15, 2026
Dominic Lawson the son of the late Conservative politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, and the brother of foodie celeb. Nigella. Eton then history at Oxford but fairly sound in Climate Realism.
September 15, 2026
And from Lithuanian I believe.
September 15, 2026
The triple lock is a political tool not a legal one. It was given and so can be taken away.
The state pension should be a reasonable amount and for some, based on their contributions it is but for most it isn’t because their contributions were so high. This is one of the reasons why those earning over £50K only pay 2% national insurance as there is no further return.
However there is no reason that pensioners should be any better protected against inflation than those working. So I think that the state pension should rise by average earnings not be triple locked.
September 15, 2026
If you have not saved any money or contributed you get virtually the same or more in benefits anyway.
September 15, 2026
Very True
Hence the “Why Bother” attitude of many nowadays, spend all of your income, do not work hard, do not save, do not invest, just claim as many Benefits as you can get !
This seems to be even encouraged by our growing Welfare State, although simply not a sustainable policy.
September 15, 2026
Oh no. Let’s tie it to MPs earnings.
September 15, 2026
It would be an act of blatant thuggery to change the triple lock. Politicians must understand changing NI fund legislation would destroy any semblance of trust remaining. This is another compelling reason why Parliament and politicians are held in such contempt. They cannot be trusted to be honourable and make good decisions. Our National debt and debt interest is clear evidence of mismanagement by Government and the Bank of England. This calls into question the competency of Prime Ministers when they select their Chancellor and Treasury team, because we, the people, are being badly served.
September 15, 2026
Maybe if the Government was economically, financially and fiscally competent …..then it would not have to worry so much about the cost of the pensions it pays to old people. It might also be able to justify its general profligacy.
September 15, 2026
Savings I would target:
Public sector employer contributions of up to 29% – if we consider how large the public sector wage bill is knocking 20 – 25% off the pension contribution represents a huge saving by moving to defined contribution pensions.
Benefits can be average wage increases less 1%. There is no reason why those on benefits should be protected against inflation and paying benefits increases demand (particularly in housing).
Green subsidies.
Carbon capture
HS2
Any payments to a foreigner who has not paid tax for 5 years, including health and education.
The Lords
The number of MPs
Tax political donations. Tax union fees
September 15, 2026
Do those on Benefits actually pay any income tax at all ?
September 15, 2026
Not only should the government keep it’s hands of the triple lock. It should increase the income tax starting threshold to ensure people relying solely on the state pension are not taxed on it.
How mad is it to give a pension set by government and then take some back in tax ……
September 15, 2026
The world is rapidly approaching an oil price crunch due to Trump’s failed “three week” war on the Ayatollahs. Trump is aware of the likely effect on US inflation should the oil price rapidly rise to a projected $250 a barrel. He is already trying to blame Zelenskiy for the high costs of refined oil products, because of Ukraine bombing Russian oil refineries. And it’s definitely not due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the IRGC
( personal allegation against Trump removed ed)
All summer, the oil price has been artificially held down by releases from global oil stockpiles. These are now close to exhaustion. Big Oil and Big Gas are rubbing their hands with glee at the vast profits they are about to accrue this winter. The rest of us can freeze.
September 15, 2026
@Sakara Gold – and the UK sits atop of oil and gas reserves that would keeps prices under control, but its Political Class prefers sending UK money that it doesn’t have abroad to prop up dodgy regimes.
Its good to see that you are favour of your Ayatollahs and their aspirations of being a Nuclear weapon power in a such a volatile area of the World
September 15, 2026
@Ian B
Another of your incoherent pro Big Oil rants
They are all pulling out of the N Sea because tere are no economically extractable hydrocarbons left. BP is the latest to announce a withdrawal. All that is left in the N Sea basin are the dregs, which are not worth extracting and shipping to a country that can refine them.
Flaring off the “surplus” gas – which is happening right across the globe (except America, where Trump authorised Exxon etc to just vent it to the atmosphere because the global climate emergency is a Chinese hoax) is a major source of global heating
If Jackdaw is approved it will provide less than 2% of the UK’s winter gas needs and has cost in excess of $2.5 billion in tax breaks and direct subsidies to the developer. We will get charged the cartel price for it
September 15, 2026
Putin and Zelensky agreed not to target energy infrastructure.
Trump announced the pact.
Zelensky hit Russian oil.
Do you think this is a bigger problem?
Israel of course has no oil.
September 15, 2026
Not to be out done David Willetts the President of the Socialist think tank ‘the Resolution Foundation(that alone says it all) Chips in with
“The triple lock is a symbol of a society that has stolen the young’s future”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/12/the-triple-lock-is-a-symbol-of-society-stolen-young-future/
According to him the weekly amount: £184.90 per week or £9,614.80 per year based on a full record of contributions, is more than what the UK’s poorest households that are permitted to work and earn get. He is conflating that older people should surrender their dignity and go cap in hand to the State for handout as justification of a Politician not being honest.
September 15, 2026
There seems to be a very distinctly nasty idea being put into young people’s heads that the elderly are to blame for all the ills the young believe they face and how they all had it so much easier and have pulled the ladder up.
On housing alone, they’ve no idea how people struggled to buy their first home, and what they went without to make the mortgage payments each month
Or that young single people did not have money to rent flats, only the very highly paid set could do that and often then it was by sharing.
Neither were they given council accommodation at the drop of a hat, and even as married couples they often had to wait and live with either set of parents until one became available.
Whatever changes there have been and whatever the financial woes of the country it is the mishandling and often sheer incompetence as well as political ideology that has brought us to where we are.
White elderly people are however being made the scapegoats.
September 15, 2026
@Michelle – then he didn’t ask who paid for their education. State schools zero cost to students. Then on to University fulfilling Tony Blair’s quota for a worthless degrees, we hear about the fees they could pay. Then in the same sentence it doesn’t say will it be paid back, but we never hear of what it costs the taxpayer for them to achieve nothing. In the same context the UK Taxpayer is expected on to fund EU Students and they have proven it wont be paid back.
These guys are just stirring ‘it’ to appease their own egos, and the fact they are not being 100% truthful and honest isn’t ‘called out’
September 15, 2026
Yes John you are correct the triple lock should stay
I do hope the conservatives are serious about delivering policies that will make large reductions in spending this country desperately needs
The increase in NI must be reversed
September 15, 2026
I’d like to see an end to the triple lock and elimination of employer’s national insurance, which makes British industry uncompetitive. Let workers contribute to their own occupational pension scheme, which is now mandatory following the Pension Act and wean people off the public teat.
No wonder the National Insurance fund is in surplus given the steady increase in tax rates over time.
September 15, 2026
Has anyone explained what they propose to replace the triple lock and how much pensioners would consequently lose?
September 15, 2026
Not to loose site of who is stocking up the controversy, The Daily Telegraph has been running campaigns against pensioners for seemingly for the last couple of years. It appears they have let a very junior staffer who is having a heyday stoking up ‘click-bait’ at the expense of other peoples lives
September 15, 2026
What we have been seeing in recent years is intergenerational covetousness and envy fuelled by commentators like Lawson (ignoring the tenth commandment).
We need more young people is the demographic reality but picking them up off the rubber boats is not the answer; they could cost us more than the pensioners. Tax breaks for working families to encourage more births would make more sense in the medium term.
September 15, 2026
Well John, you are running a social media site, where the commenters discuss stuff. The government is handing powers to Ofcom to shut such sites down.
If you don’t abide by the prevailing orthodoxy you will be in trouble.
And don’t try wearing a balaclava…
September 15, 2026
What we are grappling with here is a numbers game.
The uncomfortable reality is the triple lock is a safety net guarantee for the older secion of society while the money needed to fund it has to be paid by the working sector who will one day if all goes to plan have the same rights to a protected pension.
The media, as they are prone to doing, tries to shape the debate as the rich home owning pensioners robbing the poor renting and hard working workers. As John says in his article here there are plenty of areas the state can focus on to save serious amounts of money before taking the pittance money off the pensioners.
It is a crazy area to focus on for government trying to make savings, as was clearly demonstrated by an anonymous Tory MP talking to the Telegraph last week.They would only voice their support for scrapping the triple lock if the DT didn’t reveal the identity of said Tory MP.
September 15, 2026
Good comments from our host last night on GBNEWS. Subject of 20MPH roads in Wales.
The leftie was most insulting, suggesting the Conservatives on the panel were putting lives at stake. He quoted some numbers to try and prove his case, but at no time did he supply a comparison between deaths on the roads before and after the speed limits were reduced.
I must admit to getting hacked off when leftie commentators indulge themselves in personal attacks – it happens all too often and they are infrequently told to correct their ways.
Of course we all know the reason for 20MPH zones and low car usage neighbourhoods – Low traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) as the implementers like to call them, and it has nothing to do with saving lives, that is just a lame excuse.
Making car use impossible and forcing drivers onto other means of transport, (cycling and shanks’s pony are the favourites), is a major plank of Net-0, so don’t imagine this war on motorists is anything but more pressure to stop using cars.
September 15, 2026
Indeed – but why do so many so-called right commentators take the leftie view when it suits them to insult.
Those that want the triple lock removed are not interested in fairness – after all, it was imposed because pensioners were suffering badly. Pensioners are an easy target for the left who have no qualms about punishing them because they dared to live too long.
September 15, 2026
They are all authoritarian. Left and right.
There is only one exception. The fastest growing Party in the U.K.
September 15, 2026
I think – and correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not a financial genius – that a way forward could be the lifting of the personal tax-free income to be equivalent to the earnings of someone working full-time on minimum wages, i.e. around £25.000 p.a. It would also eliminate much of the bureaucracy dealing with handing out ‘universal credit’ and other benefits such as not demanding council taxes. The triple lock would then not become an issue any longer.
None of the current government, politicians or mandarins would do this though because it would mean all those public servants shuffling those universal credit/allowances to be handed out would be out of a job … and – sorry, sarcasm: we can’t have that, we ‘need’ ideally to have most of the country in public-sector jobs …
September 15, 2026
Well we seem to have to get the boat people into good public sector jobs, including MI5!
September 15, 2026
You expose the real problem with our finances. The BoE.
Along with poor leadership among the ruling classes, we’ve suffered a double whammy of a less-than-competent head of our National Bank to boot and for many years. Yet he is still in the job.
Now, could he have survived in the Private Sector, where the shareholders have control?
September 17, 2026
If the NI fund is in such a healthy surplus, why did Rachael Reeves increase the employers’ NI rate ?
Surely the increase needed to go onto other taxes instead, because it it looks like it was not needed to pay the limited set of benefits taken from the NI fund.
Or does she not know that that NI is a separate fund ?
September 17, 2026
When people say pensioners never paid enough NI to pay for their state pensions, this is the reply I give.
Take the NI contributions from each year in the past and correct them for growth in GDP from then to the current day.
This correction factor is really quite large if you go back many decades.
Workers paying NI in the past were investing in UK pensions ltd, and are now benefitting from the growth in their “shares”.