Pensions Hit By Labour’s Triple Lock Let Down
In 2024 tens of thousands of people who normally vote Tory bought into Labour’s promise of change and gave Keir Starmer the majority he needed to change people’s lives for the better. Not even a year later and thousands of older people are feeling like they’ve been left out in the cold - and that the cold’s been let in - as the Labour government have turned away from the very people who got them into Downing Street.
Now, research shows that even Labour’s promised increase in the state pension won’t even even cover the cost of Labour’s disastrous policies targeting older people.
The basic state pension is due to rise by £361.40 this year, barely covering the £300 cold weather lifeline Starmer stripped away by cutting winter fuel payments. Along with rising energy bills, water bills, phone and internet bills, and council tax increases (which your Lib Dem-led council kept below 5% while other council’s, including Birmingham City Council who haven’t collected bins for two months, got government permission to increase theirs by up to 10%), a pensioner will be hit by a increase of £720 - plus growing costs for food and private social care.
I’m proud that our Lib Dem-led council in Portsmouth is continuing to support everyone in our community, even when the Labour government is turning their backs on people group by group, new tax by new tax. From our expanded older person’s bus pass to Portsmouth’s leading winter support scheme for pensioners over Christmas, we will continue to work for our city and the people who spent their lives building it.
Cllr Mark Jeffery, Councillor for St Thomas Ward
The Lib Dems are proud to have brought in the pension triple lock, lifting so many pensioners out of poverty, and to have committed to saving it in our 2024 manifesto so that pensions will always rise in line with inflation, wages, or 2.5% - whichever is highest.
The triple lock is being wiped out by a triple hit of winter fuel payment cuts, council tax hikes, and rising bills. This Labour government has treated pensioners appallingly, leaving them cold in the winter and vulnerable to price hikes in the spring.
Steve Darling MP, Lib Dem Work and Pensions Spokesperson