Last week in Parliament, only one Tory MP voted with Labour’s Motion to protect the Pension Triple lock.
Despite it being a Tory manifesto pledge for the state pension rate to increase each year in relation to the highest of three indicators; inflation, the average increase in wages across the UK or by 2.5%, the future of the triple-lock has been placed in jeopardy as the government tries to fill the £60 billion black hole in public finances caused by their mismanagement of the economy.
Breaking the manifesto pledge would deprive people on the new state pension of £443 a year at a time when British pensioners – already struggling on one of the lowest state pensions in the developed world – can’t afford the basics.
The only credible defence I’ve heard anyone say of not protecting the triple lock is that it’s not fair to all the other people this Government has let down.
The nurses having to use foodbanks, the teachers who feed hungry kids with their own money, the public service workers who after years of stagnant wages dare to ask for a pay rise because they can’t afford to feed their families properly, who are frightened to put the heating on and are now worried they can afford their home.
They have a point.
When the Government hasn’t yet committed to keeping benefits in line with inflation; when young people must saddle themselves in enormous debt to get themselves a good education; when home ownership is nothing but a pipe
dream for a whole generation of young people the argument is, it’s not fair to protect pensioners.
Well, what a race to the bottom!
How dreadful, that we are being invited by this Government to be envious of other people’s rights, pitting workers against pensioners, young against old, when the truth is, nearly all of us will lose out in this week’s Budget.
That this Government is considering cutting the pension pots of the people who have paid into them, in good faith, their whole lives, is frightening. And I mean frightening for pensioners who are already struggling to make ends meet.
The triple lock was introduced to help lift pensioners out of poverty. It’s even more important to protect it since pensioners are particularly vulnerable to inflation as they spend a higher percentage of their income on food and fuel.
Taking it away in a cost-of living crisis will cost lives.
As the Chancellor himself now admits, “‘Austerity’ didn’t work the first time and it’s not going to work now.” But cutting public services and pensions IS austerity.
I’ve already heard the Chancellor invoking the myths like comparing household debt to Government debt – the same old tried, tested and failed arguments to try to get away with another round of outright vandalism of our devastated public services.
How about trying to recoup some of the £80 billion a year the Tories’ disastrous Brexit is costing the country – and the £4.3 billion the Prime Minister wrote off for Covid loan fraud first?
It’s not pensioners or workers seeking modest pay rises that are costing this country.
It’s this Conservative Government’s mismanagement of the economy that once again means that those who are least able to afford it will be expected to foot the bill, with disastrous consequences.
This is a monthly guest column provided by Mohammad Yasin, Labour MP for Bedford & Kempston.
It is published unedited and does not reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
