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Before we can truly secure the pension system, we must have an honest conversation about what the State Pension is for. For generations, it has been seen as an undeniable right – a universal entitlement earned after a lifetime of work.
But in an era of unprecedented longevity and immense pressure on our public finances, this view has become both unsustainable and, more importantly, unfair. A system that pays the same amount to a millionaire as it does to a person with no other savings is not a system focused on need. It treats the State Pension as a simple transaction, ignoring its true moral purpose: to prevent poverty and guarantee dignity in old age.
Therefore, we believe a national shift in mindset is required. The State Pension must evolve from a universal entitlement into what it was always meant to be at its core: the strongest possible safety net for those who need it most.
This change in philosophy allows us to build a modern system that is not only fiscally responsible but also truly compassionate, by targeting every pound of support to protect our most vulnerable citizens.
The state pension should be a safety net for those who truly need it. Therefore, we propose that individuals with a significant private income of over £50,000 per year from other sources will no longer receive the payment. To ensure fairness and avoid a "cliff-edge", those with a private income just below the threshold will only receive a partial, tapered payment that brings their total income up to the £50,000 limit, but not beyond it.
Here’s how the simple, fair maths would work:
This is not about penalising success. It is about strengthening the state pension by ensuring it functions as it was always intended: as a powerful safety net for the millions who depend on it.
The impact of this single reform is profound. The maths is simple and powerful:
That is a saving of nearly £6 Billion every single year. This is money that can be used to secure our public services—like our NHS—that every generation relies on.
This is about seizing a once-in-a-generation chance to guarantee the pension promise for the long term. It’s a reform that protects today’s pensioners, secures the system for our children and grandchildren, and takes a responsible step towards lowering our national debt.
In his influential book The Pinch, the politician and author David Willetts presents a powerful analogy to help us think about our responsibility to the future. He asks us to imagine a community living by a forest. Read More: The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future - And Why They Should Give It Back by David Willetts
Willetts outlines three choices for a logger:
Willetts notes that in experiments, people were "most susceptible to an appeal to restrain their logging to protect the interests of future generations." This appeal to our role as stewards for the future is the most powerful motivator for responsible action.
This is precisely the choice we face with the state pension. We can continue with the current system for short-term political comfort, or we can act as responsible stewards, trimming it back to a sustainable level to ensure the "forest"—our pension system and our economy—is healthy for generations to come.
The State Pension. It feels like a solid British promise – work hard, pay your dues, and the state will support you in retirement. But the 'triple lock' designed to protect that promise might just be the mechanism that breaks it for good. As author Daniel Anthony Harrison argues in his book, Intergenerational Theft, continuing with the triple lock is an "unsustainable and an intergenerationally unjust promise."
When the triple lock was introduced by the coalition government in 2010, it was a policy fit for purpose. Its mechanism is simple: the State Pension is guaranteed to rise each year by the highest of three figures—inflation, average earnings growth, or a baseline of 2.5%. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, interest rates had collapsed, devastating the savings of many retirees. For years, pensions had also failed to keep pace with the nation's wage growth. The triple lock was therefore a powerful and necessary corrective measure, designed to restore the value of the state pension and protect a vulnerable generation from poverty.
However, a policy designed to solve the problems of one decade cannot become a permanent, unthinking ratchet on the public finances of the next.
Its original mission is complete. The triple lock has now run its course. Today, its rigid, compounding formula is actively damaging the UK economy, creating an unsustainable fiscal burden that pits the prospects of the young against the security of the old.
If we continue as we are, the maths becomes dangerously simple. The triple lock has a built-in 'ratchet effect' that forces spending upwards, regardless of the wider economy's health, the Forecast is:
Fixing this isn't just a policy choice; it is a once-in-a-generation chance to renew our nation's promise to its people. To seize this opportunity, we will modernise the system with two common-sense reforms.
We will end the rigid 'triple lock' and introduce a fairer model, which will adjust each year depending on the circumstances with an Annual Government Review
Our saving forecast isn't a guess; it's a projection based on the UK's own official data, showing the long-term impact of a simple, common-sense reform. Here’s the breakdown:
By 2035, the compounding effect means the annual State Pension would be approximately £444 higher per person under the Triple Lock than our proposed Double Lock. When scaled up across the entire population, the maths is clear: £444 (Per-Pensioner Saving) x 14.4 million people ≈ £6.4 Billion Annual Saving
This figure is a projection based on the best available official data. The exact saving will naturally vary with the UK's future economic performance.
This approach acknowledges that a simple formula cannot always account for the complex reality of the nation's circumstances. It would allow for a more holistic and responsive decision each year, empowering ministers to explicitly consider a wider range of crucial factors, such as:
Ultimately, this path trades the rigid certainty of a formula for the agility to make a balanced judgement, tailored to the specific challenges and opportunities the country faces each year.
