Minister Says Tories Would Have to Lift Pension Age Above 70
A Treasury minister has turned the row over the triple lock into an argument about retirement age. Torsten Bell claims that a Conservative government would have to push the state pension age past 70 to pay for its promise to leave the lock alone.
Labour's change and the Tory reply
Labour has set out changes to the triple lock that would apply from the next parliament. The first savings are earmarked for Andy Burnham's national care service. Under the plan, the state pension would rise each year by the higher of inflation or 2.5%. It would track earnings only after falling behind recent pay growth.
The Conservatives have attacked the move and say they would keep the triple lock. It lifts the state pension each year by the largest of inflation, 2.5% or earnings growth.
Bell's case against the Conservatives
Bell argues that an unreformed triple lock gets steadily more expensive. Government estimates put the cost at £50bn by 2050. He says a Tory government would then fall back on what it did in the 2010s: speeding up planned rises in the state pension age.
"We don't need to guess what they would do because they've literally just done it," he said. He pointed to rises accelerated in 2011 and 2014, some at very short notice. Some people, he said, had as little as five years' warning.
The state pension age is under review. It is already due to rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046. Bell said the Conservatives would go further and "end up making people wait into their 70s".
Old promises and a delayed plan
In 2013 the then chancellor George Osborne said that raising the pension age was one of the less controversial things the government had done. He also said it had delivered enormous savings.
Bell also recalled that Badenoch floated means-testing the triple lock only last year, and that Jeremy Hunt called the policy a burden on public finances.
Bell predicted that voters would side with a prime minister who makes the case openly. He called the Tory stance a bigger problem for Badenoch than she realises, since her brand rests on plain speaking.
The triple lock had been treated as too risky to touch, especially after Labour's winter fuel allowance plan for most pensioners caused a backlash and was later dropped.
Bell has been MP for Swansea West since 2024 and led the Resolution Foundation thinktank before that. He stayed on as pensions minister, a role that spans the Treasury and the DWP, once Burnham took over in July.
Burnham's 10-year plan may now slip into the new year. Bell said it will promise future pensioners a better deal, with the comfortable retirement their parents had.
Source: The Guardian