A triple lock pension split has broken into the open inside the Conservative Party after the party shared a social media post claiming that Labour was cutting pensions, drawing swift rebukes from a string of former senior figures who called the claim misleading. The row follows an announcement by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, made at this week’s party conference, that Labour would reform the triple lock if the party remained in power after the next election.
Under Burnham’s proposal, the state pension would still rise each year, but by whichever is higher out of inflation or 2.5 per cent, removing the third leg of the current formula: wage growth. The existing system increases the state pension by whichever is highest out of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent.
The post that sparked the backlash
The Conservatives responded to Burnham’s announcement by sharing a post on X captioned ‘Labour are cutting pensions for millions’, accompanied by an image of an elderly woman. The post drew immediate criticism from within the party’s own ranks. Former Brexit minister Steve Baker called out the use of the word ‘cut’. ‘The Conservatives ought to do better and I’m thankful I’m free to say so,’ he wrote online.
David Gauke, who served as work and pensions secretary under Theresa May and later sat as an independent MP, was more direct. It ‘isn’t true’ that Labour was cutting pensions, he said. ‘There’s plenty to criticise in Burnham’s agenda, but the triple lock reform is sensible. This is a poor response.’
The criticism carries weight partly because the triple lock pension split is not new within the party. Several Tory MPs have privately said the policy is unsustainable for public finances, and a number of former frontbenchers have said so publicly. Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith, who was then a backbencher in 2021, wrote in Conservative Home that the triple lock was ‘unfair’ because pensioners could ‘gain from the misfortune of others’. ‘I hope that we can build consensus on what should not really be a subject of controversy but a sensible and pragmatic response to post pandemic management of the economy,’ he wrote.
Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who remains a sitting MP, has described the triple lock system as an ‘anchor drag on economic growth’. Shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat has also been a critic of the policy, even as it remains in the Conservatives’ plans. His spokesman told City AM he fully supported Kemi Badenoch’s policy platform.
The financial case behind Labour’s move
Labour has made no secret of the fiscal motivation. According to Reuters, the party said the reform would save £15 billion a year by the end of the 2030s, rising to £50 billion a year by 2050. Those are projections that help explain why some on the Conservative benches, whatever their public position, have found it difficult to dismiss the reform outright.
The triple lock pension split within the Tory party also sits against a broader backdrop of public opinion that has remained stubbornly in favour of the existing policy. A poll for the I newspaper, published this week, found that 53% of Britons support keeping the triple lock, while only 13% are in favour of ditching it, according to Reuters. That sentiment has been durable: a YouGov poll in 2021 found that 68% of Britons wanted to keep the triple lock, with just 11% in favour of scrapping it, according to The Conversation.
A policy with a long history
The triple lock has been a feature of the pensions landscape for some time. According to the BBC, it was introduced in 2010 by the coalition government and designed to ensure the value of the state pension was not overtaken by rises in the cost of living or in the incomes of working people. That original intent is now at the centre of a political argument about whether the mechanism has grown too expensive to sustain in its current form.
The Conservative Party’s difficulty is that its public defence of the triple lock pension sits uneasily alongside years of internal scepticism from some of its most senior figures. That tension is unlikely to ease as Burnham’s proposal moves further through the political process.
