London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Rishi Sunak hints at suspension to pension triple lock

Rishi Sunak hints at suspension to pension triple lock

Chancellor refuses to say whether guarantee introduced in 2010 will be honoured this year


Rishi Sunak has given a broad hint that the government will temporarily break the pension triple lock this year in order to prevent the Treasury being landed with a £3bn uprating bill.

The chancellor said there was a need to be fair to taxpayers as well as pensioners in light of a forecast from the Whitehall spending watchdog – the Office for Budget Responsibility – that a post-lockdown surge in pay growth would result in the state pension going up by 8% next April.

The government pledged at the 2019 election to continue raising the state pension in line with average earnings, the annual inflation rate or 2.5% – whichever is higher.

But in a series of radio and TV interviews, Sunak refused to say whether the guarantee would be honoured this year.

“The triple lock is the government’s policy but I very much recognise people’s concerns,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“I think they are completely legitimate and fair concerns to raise. We want to make sure the decisions we make and the systems we have are fair, both for pensioners and for taxpayers.”

The pension triple lock was introduced by the coalition government in 2010 but for months the Treasury has been lobbying behind the scenes for a temporary suspension.

The OBR has said earnings growth will be artificially high this year because growth is picking up and wages were depressed this time last year by the restrictions imposed on the economy to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The loss of many lower-paid jobs has also had an impact, because those remaining in work are paid more.

Annual earnings growth was running at 5.6% in the three months to April and is on a rising trend. If the government decides to leave the pledge in place, pensions will be uprated using the earnings figure for July.

Sunak said the government must “wait for the actual numbers to be finalised”, which he said were currently “speculation”, before looking at the policy “properly at the appropriate time”.

After a year in which government borrowing hit a record peacetime high of more than £300bn, the chancellor has repeatedly said it is important to return the public finances to a more sustainable path.

A decision to break a manifesto commitment would require the agreement of Boris Johnson, who is aware that the triple lock is popular with pensioners, the majority of whom vote Conservative.

Sunak will argue, however, that a one-year suspension is politically defensible given the unusual circumstances and the need to fund other government priorities, such as the NHS and catchup funds for schools.

Final decisions will be made in the autumn in the government’s spending round, which will be formally launched by the chancellor later this month.

David Willetts, the president of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said it was time to abandon the triple lock permanently.

“The Covid crisis has laid bare the design faults of the triple lock, with a severe jobs crisis last year inadvertently contributing to an unnecessary and unjustified 8% rise in the state pension next year.

“The chancellor should take the opportunity this autumn to replace the triple lock with a smoothed earnings link. This would mean the state pension would rise in line with the living standards of working-age people – a change that would be fair to all generations.”

Johnson did not play down rumours of the triple lock’s imminent demise, echoing Sunak’s words that he wanted increases to be fair to the recipients and the wider pool of taxpayers. “We’ve got to have fairness for pensioners and the taxpayers, but I think you’ll have to wait and see what the chancellor comes up with,” the prime minister said.

His spokesperson said the triple lock remained government policy, adding that the government “recognises the concerns about what that might mean but the numbers remain speculation and it’s wrong to make policy about speculation”.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
×