Kemi Badenoch defended the Conservatives’ commitment to the triple lock policy, arguing the basic state pension of £12,500 a year is “very little money” to live on.
“The triple lock is our policy. We brought it in in 2010 and the reason why we brought it in was because of pensioner poverty. The £12,500 state pension is actually very little money for many people to live on,” Badenoch told The i Paper in an exclusive interview in Basildon, Essex, on Monday.
“The real issue in our country now is growth. If we were growing at 2 or 3 per cent no one would even be having a conversation about the triple lock. Talking about the triple lock is talking about redistribution. We need to start creating value for money [and] productivity in our country, not printing money and slicing what’s there already,” Badenoch said.
The Leader of the Opposition was commenting amid growing calls in Westminster to scrap the “unaffordable” social security bill and competing demands to increase the defence budget. The budget for pensions and benefits is due to reach almost £323bn in 2025-26. Around 55 per cent of this is spent on pensioner benefits, including £146.1bn on the state pension.
The triple lock means taxpayer-funded pensions rise each year in line with either inflation, wage increases or 2.5 per cent – whichever is the highest. Designed to tackle pensioner poverty, the Office for Budget Responsibility now estimates it will cost around £15.5bn per year by the end of this Parliament in 2029, around three times what was originally forecast when it was brought in.
‘Reform has no strategy’
Earlier this month Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said his party would pledge to keep the triple lock, arguing they will slash out-of-work benefits payments to fund it. Badenoch was unimpressed by the commitment.
“He just says whatever he thinks is going to get him through the news on a particular day; there is no strategy to Reform. The two-child benefit cap is the best example of how he’s all over the place; one minute he said he wanted to remove the cap, then he said he wanted to put it back on the day of the vote. Reform MPs voted both ways at the same time; they don’t know what they’re doing.
“All they know is that they want to replace the Conservative Party. They spend most of their time attacking us rather than Labour. I don’t think there’s any credible agenda here. It’s just words,” she added.
Asked again to commit to the policy, Badenoch added, “I have said it repeatedly, the triple lock is Conservative policy.”
One reason Reform’s decision to commit to the triple lock was so noteworthy is that Farage is the only person who could have given Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats the political cover to have a proper debate – both internally and more importantly, with the public – about the cost of keeping this political sacred cow alive.
The triple lock places a considerable burden on taxpayers when other demands on public funds, notably NHS spending for the same demographic of older Britons, are also set to rocket. The triple lock’s defenders point out that some pensioners are asset-rich but income-poor.
Triple lock ‘not defensible’
Earlier this month Michael Gove, a Conservative peer and one-time mentor of Badenoch, urged Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the lock, labelling it “not defensible”.
Labour’s former deputy leader, Harriet Harman, has also suggested the Government should look at means-testing the lock in order to raise more money for defence. British Armed Forces face cuts of up to £6bn this Parliament even as Nato allies are demanding higher spending.
While some Labour MPs privately say the Government needs a more “strategic” approach when it comes to how to respond to an ageing population and the cost of it, many disagree with the premise of means-testing.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said in 2025 the state pension could rise by around £80bn in today’s terms by the 2070s, “but under a more volatile economic environment the triple lock could cost an extra 1.5 per cent of national income – or £44bn – on top of this”.
