
The pension triple lock is a drain on the taxpayer
Jeremy Hunt’s promise that the Conservative manifesto will protect the ‘triple lock’ on the state pension is a desperate measure to appeal to the one group of the population whom the Conservatives feel they can rely on. But taxpayers will not be thanking him in a few years’ time. On the contrary, by keeping the triple lock – which increases state pensions by either the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is greatest – Hunt has abdicated any remaining fiscal responsibility and condemned the public finances to further ruin. The triple lock is already costing taxpayers £10 billion a year. Since 2011/12 when the triple
