There is a fair way to change the unsustainable pensions triple lock

SIR – MPs are rightly concerned about how scrapping the triple lock would affect poorer pensioners.

My husband and I – both less poor pensioners – share this concern. But isn’t this what pension credit is for? The solution is to scrap the part of the triple lock which is inappropriate this year, but significantly increase pension credit to compensate those who are badly affected.

Dr Judith A Secker

London SE16

SIR – I was surprised by Simon Heffer’s claim (Comment, August 1) that pensioners have “enjoyed remarkably good times”.

The over-75s have just had their net income reduced by £160 due to the withdrawal of the free television licence. Pensioners are also taxpayers, and make a net contribution to the economy of some £60 billion a year. In the last decade we have seen a massive effective transfer of income from pensioners to young house-buyers through low interest rates, which have decimated savers’ incomes. But the greatest unfairness comes from the focus on percentage increases, which give more to those who already have, such as Mr Heffer, and next to nothing to those at the bottom end.

Many of our members are either on pension credit or just over the limit, which means they get few other benefits. Last year’s increase went entirely on increased council taxes, the TV licence and increased fuel costs.

Pensioners need a substantial increase just to keep up. This can be paid for by slashing the increases for those at the top.

Hugh Emerson

Secretary, South Cheshire Pensioners Association

SIR – Today’s pensioners have enjoyed a life of free healthcare, free university education, full employment, being the first generation in a century not to see a major war, the highest level of home ownership ever, massive wealth gains from home ownership, triple lock pensions, having a smaller elderly population than working population in early life and dominance as voters in later life. Young people have a right to ask if this isn’t enough.

Phil Stewart London SW14

SIR – There may be a case for a temporary suspension of the triple lock, so as to discount the anomaly of the v-shaped spike in average earnings due to Covid. But those both inside and outside the Tory party who see this as an opportunity to scrap the lock altogether should think again.

The rationale for its introduction still holds true: our basic state pension remains one of the most miserly of all comparable economies, and the gap between it and average earnings is still far greater. To suggest that the triple lock perpetuates “inter-generational unfairness” against the young is therefore nonsense. And the zealots should remember that they too will grow old eventually.

Nigel Henson Cheltenham, Gloucestershire