Gaby Hinsliff says Britain’s pensions triple lock is unaffordable

Gaby Hinsliff writes that Britain’s “triple lock” guarantee on state pensions—uprating by the highest of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5%—has become the quiet centre of the country’s fiscal argument. Introduced in 2011 by then-chancellor George Osborne, the policy is now treated in Westminster as untouchable even as politicians hunt for savings elsewhere.

According to the Guardian column, the Office for Budget Responsibility projects that by 2030 the triple lock will cost more than £15 billion a year—almost the same order of money as the leap to lifting UK defence spending to 3% of GDP. The piece notes that the government is simultaneously prepared to pursue “painful” cuts to disability benefits, a contrast that keeps returning in private conversations among MPs who acknowledge the pension formula is hard to sustain but rarely say so publicly.

The column sketches a political economy in which the costs of delay are dispersed while the penalties for action are immediate. Pensioners vote at high rates; working-age taxpayers are asked to absorb rising bills through general taxation; and any party that proposes change can be accused of breaking a promise to older people. Hinsliff points to polling by YouGov showing two-thirds of Britons—and 70% of those over 65—want to keep the triple lock, a number that helps explain why “cross-party consensus” on reform can exist in private while manifesting as public silence.

What makes the fight sharper is that the money is already being pre-allocated in competing manifestos. The Guardian column lists alternative uses floated by different camps: the British Chambers of Commerce suggests diverting funds toward tackling youth unemployment via national insurance cuts; the Centre for Social Justice argues for spending aimed at improving the life chances of working-class boys; and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is cited as backing free social care for the elderly. Each proposal targets a constituency that loses out when pensions are automatically prioritised.

Hinsliff also notes how the triple lock turns annual uprating into a lottery of macroeconomic conditions: in years when inflation or earnings spike, the state commits itself to permanent increases that do not reverse when conditions normalise. The result is a ratchet that compounds over time, while the rest of the welfare state is forced into periodic “reforms” that are politically easier to sell because they are framed as targeting narrower groups.

The immediate choice, as the column frames it, is between a projected 3.9% rise in pensions next year and relief from the risk of selling family homes to pay for nursing care. The longer-term choice is whether Westminster continues to treat a formula from 2011 as a constitutional clause.

The triple lock was designed as a simple promise. Fifteen years later, it functions as a spending programme that renews itself every autumn.