B

Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 21 January 2025

Debate

State Pension: Triple Lock

Contribution

My Lords, I am certainly not going to answer for the leader of the Opposition. I will allow others who are rather better qualified than I am to do that. But I can assure her that the idea of means testing the triple lock, even if its meaning were clear, is not something we on these Benches embrace. I can tell the noble Lord very clearly that we have a manifesto commitment that the triple lock will hold for the entirety of this Parliament. That is a huge commitment. The noble Lord mentioned winter fuel payments. Means testing those meant that a number of pensioners lost a sum of £200 or £300. By contrast, the amount of money we are investing in the state pension will mean that the annual rate will go up by up to £1,900 by the end of this Parliament. The comments by my colleague, the Minister for Pensions, Torsten Bell, were made as a private individual when he was the head of a think tank. It is the job of heads of think tanks to think big ideas and to talk about them. However, I assure the House that Minister Bell, along with me, is fully committed to the triple lock and the Government’s commitment to it. I hope the nation’s pensioners will be delighted to hear that.

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