Jeremy Hunt commits Tories to Triple Lock

Lightweight said:
Not sure what you mean by pulling the ladder up after themselves with the triple lock? If we don’t increase the pension by this each year the pension will be smaller for each year it is not implemented. ( this is why the doctors are asking for 35% pay increase to take their pay back to where it should be in part.) therefor people who are 20 plus years of state pension age will receive a state pension much worse.

It’s a separate debate for the mean’s testing as I believe this should be implemented but would need to look at the long term impact on this as potentially someone could work to 55, blow their private pension by 67 and still be eligible for the state pension so might not give the desired effect.
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Nobody is suggesting that the state pension shouldn't be index linked, it's a legal requirement on the government that it is. However presently that index linking is worked out from the increase in average earnings OR the CPI OR 2.5% which ever if the highest. Personally I think a double lock with average earnings OR CPI would be fairer.
 
brattleboro said:
the tories have destroyed everything in this country,their lies knows no bounds,sooner they are out the better
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Short term measures at any cost to stay in power without doing what they should be doing, running the country for the benefit of most, not a few.

We need to take a serious look at wealth distribution, without doing so the economy will fail, democracy will be even further diminished, barbarism will increase.

We have a fair chunk of the population who actually support the shift to barbarism, they've got to be persuaded of the obvious, that it's not going to benefit them.
 
Lottowyn said:
He has pledged the Conservatives to this if they win a General Election on Kuenssberg programme this morning.
So I imagine that pensioners will be looking for Labour to follow suit.
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Why shouldn't pensioners get a decent pension,if you have paid your national insurance you deserve it,one day we all will need a pension,the problem with society today is that people are jealous if someone is getting something there are not.
I've paid in for nearly 50 years I think I deserve something when I retire.
 
ThePrisoner said:
Income is assessed for tax purposes, including pension. That is not means testing. Means testing is assessing if you are entitled to a pension payment in the first place, not taxing it.
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I was addressing the statement and follow-up question:
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ThePrisoner said:
Would cost a fortune to means test millions of people and then do it again every year.
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How would it? We already do this every year."
Although we don't means test pensions we already collect much of the information needed to apply an income-based means test. I wasn't asserting that we currently apply one.
 
JackG said:
Depends on the 'means' we're testing. We do it for income, up to a point, via HMRC. We also do wealth assessments for social care but that would be very expensive to carry out on a broader scale.
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How many people are required to fill in self assessment forms? I'm genuinely curious. I know I've had to do one since I've been a company director but I'm not certain what other circumstances there are that make it a requirement.
Surely to means test pensioners would required all pensioners to complete one.
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
Why test people on something they've paid for?

I'm not means tested for my personal pension, which I've paid for, why should I be means tested for my state pension, which I've paid for?
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When this has been raised in the past one of the problems has been that literally millions of people have made NI contributions over decades on the clear indication from UK governments that this results in a non means tested pension.

There is no way that means testing can be applied retrospectively, without a legal challenge - which the government would lose.

Of course the gov could choose to wind down this commitment for the future. If the Tories want to reduce their current 7% standing with under 35s to zero, that is.
 
masquesmog said:
When this has been raised in the past one of the problems has been that literally millions of people have made NI contributions over decades on the clear indication from UK governments that this results in a non means tested pension.

There is no way that means testing can be applied retrospectively, without a legal challenge - which the government would lose.

Of course the gov could choose to wind down this commitment for the future. If the Tories want to reduce their current 7% standing with under 35s to zero, that is.
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Why would it be applied retrospectively?
 
thewanderer said:
Why would it be applied retrospectively?
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Maybe the wrong adverb. But you could be saying to people coming into their benefit years that the previous commitment to non means tested payments based on their history of NI payments no longer applied, a means tested system would be in place.

While it isn't a savings scheme (I think we all know it is paid out of current taxation), the government wouldn't be able to just change the agreed benefits based on decades of government policies and statements without legal challenge.

The system can be changed I guess with some notice for future pensioners to make alternative arrangements. I guess even then you would be needing to give the current working population years, if not decades, for them to make alternative arrangements to compensate for the possible loss of future pension.

Maybe this why Sunak and Hunt are now floating this abolish NI idea, to break the link that has been established between paying into NI and future state pension entitlement.
 
Lottowyn said:
He has pledged the Conservatives to this if they win a General Election on Kuenssberg programme this morning.
So I imagine that pensioners will be looking for Labour to follow suit.
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How does he presume they’re going to pay for that, I mean if the pension is tied to inflation it’s gonna be a Massive increase
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
Why test people on something they've paid for?

I'm not means tested for my personal pension, which I've paid for, why should I be means tested for my state pension, which I've paid for?
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In fact, depending on how any means test was considered, it would surely be a discincentive to save into a personal pension because doing so would give you more means and reduce your state pension.
 
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