Letters: The triple lock must be saved

Running the asylum

Sir: The interview with Robert Buckland must be the most depressing article I have read for a long time (‘Let them contribute’, 5 November). He notes that the many months of lockdown when no one came into the country presented the perfect opportunity to cut the asylum backlog. Instead it got bigger. He suggests reforming the system so that all information material to a case must be presented upfront, instead of cases being subject to endless appeals. (There’s also the fact that many asylum claimants have confused matters by tossing their passports in the sea during their transit.) One wonders how the Tories allowed this mess to develop, and why they can’t take commonsense steps (including his own suggestions) to resolve it.

The spectacle Buckland offers is of a government without ideas or resolve, and a Britain in which immigration is permanently at the mercy of a Home Office which has gone native.

Richard North

Hayling Island, Hampshire

Triple jump

Sir: I am concerned about the tendency for comfortably off pensioners to say that the triple lock should be abolished, as it illustrates a worrying disconnect between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in society. I was disappointed to read Charles Moore’s comments on the subject (Notes, 5 November), as he no doubt enjoys a substantial private pension from his past employment together with ongoing earnings. The state pension therefore will be a minor component of his monthly income. 

There are millions of OAPs who have worked for small businesses on low wages all their lives, whose employers did not have a pension scheme. For them, private pension schemes would have been unaffordable. To these people, the old age pension is the major, if not the only, component of their monthly income: roughly £1,500 a month for a married couple. The triple lock is needed to protect them.