The policy has its critics, but as Tories and Labour vow to keep it, I back its retention. It can be made fair, and a state should care for its people
A wealthy nation can afford to offer a comfortable and secure existence for all of its citizens. If it chooses not to do so, that is a political choice. If rationality reigned supreme, this would prove the starting point for all decisions about how society is organised. Bad news: it doesn’t, and instead much of the vast riches generated by the graft of millions of workers ends up hoovered into the bank accounts – and offshore tax havens – of a tiny few. The result? It’s easy to encourage the general population to believe that they’re locked in trench warfare over ever-scarcer resources, with so little to go around that politics is merely the art of managing a zero-sum game.
Enter, then, the question of the triple lock on the state pension, which both Tories and Labour have confirmed will feature in their upcoming manifestos. First introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010, it ensures that pensioners’ entitlements increase each April in line with whatever is highest: inflation, the average increase in wages, or a 2.5% minimum. That means more than £100bn is now splashed on the state pension each year, by far the biggest single item of social security spending, while working-age benefits have fallen drastically behind. When you include other entitlements, well over half of the welfare state ends up in pensioners’ bank accounts. At the same time, more than 60% of older Britons own their home outright, sitting on golden eggs that have only appreciated in value.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
