Starmer should bite the bullet and scrap the triple lock

Could the government be preparing itself for a spending cut which would eclipse the ending of the winter fuel payment? In his mini-reshuffle in response to the resignation of Tulip Siddiq, Keir Starmer has appointed the newly-elected MP for Swansea West, Torsten Bell, as pensions minister. It is an interesting choice because, in his former life as director of the Resolution Foundation, Bell was a loud critic of the triple lock, which he called ‘a messy way of achieving the objective of a higher state pension’. He advocated raising the state pension in line with average earnings instead.

The Prime Minister quickly moved to scotch suggestions that the triple lock will be dropped; in the Commons on Wednesday he re-committed himself to Labour’s manifesto promise of keeping it. Given the fallout over the winter fuel payment this is not surprising.

But then sooner or later a government really is going to have to abandon the triple lock, which is like an unexploded bomb planted beneath the state pension bill.