Pension fury as MPs vote again to axe the triple lock next year
MPS provoked anger after they rejected an attempt to save the state pension triple lock from being suspended next year.
Peers had backed a cross-party move to keep the link between earnings and retirement payouts.
But the House of Commons voted 300 to 229 to plough ahead with the suspension regardless.
Last night campaigners blasted the outcome, saying it would push many pensioners into poverty.
The triple lock guarantees the state pension will rise in line with the highest figure out of inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent.
But Rishi Sunak wanted to suspend the earnings link for a year as last year’s rise of eight per cent was artificially boosted because of the effect of the pandemic.
Instead, he limited next year’s rise to the Consumer Price Index rate of inflation increase of 3.1 per cent to save the Treasury around £5billion a year. The move means millions of pensioners are likely to be worse off next year.
Labour had backed the Lords amendment, which supported restoring the triple lock, with shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds describing it as reasonable.
Mr Reynolds told the Commons: “For public trust to return, the first step has to be for Government to keep its promises. So today Labour is supporting the amendment, which would allow the Government to do just that and to keep their promise on the pensions triple lock.”
After the amendment was overturned in the Commons, work and pensions minister Guy Opperman said the Government was spending £129billion on pensioners – and confirmed the triple lock would only be suspended for one year.
Tying the pensions uprating to earnings was “not possible”, he said.
Dennis Reed, director of campaign group Silver Voices, said: “The combination of the cost-of-living crisis and this broken manifesto pledge will throw hundreds of thousands more pensioner households into poverty over the coming year.
“The Treasury will be pocketing £5billion from state pensions each year from now onwards, as a result of this decision.
“We will continue to draw attention to the attacks on older people’s benefits and pensions as the cost-ofliving crisis intensifies, and the Conservatives will pay an eventual price at the polls.
“The silver vote is shifting fast, and it will not be easy for Boris Johnson to reverse this trend.”
Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Wendy Chamberlain said: “Pensioners will not forget this triple lock betrayal.
“The Government have ploughed ahead with their manifesto-breaking plan, by rejecting a fair and sensible solution that would have saved the triple lock.”