After humming and hawing, Nigel Farage has said he wants to keep the triple lock on state pensions. It may be Reform’s worst mistake yet.
The triple lock, which was introduced in 2011, means taxpayer-funded pensions rise each year in line with either inflation, wage increases or 2.5 percent – whichever is the highest. Designed to tackle pensioner poverty, the Office for Budget Responsibility now estimates it will cost around £15.5bn per year by the end of this parliament in 2029, around three times what was originally forecast when it was brought in.
Keeping it comes with some obvious political benefits. Farage wants to hold on to the older voters he’s persuaded to back him – they’re more reliable at turning out at the ballot box.
But by doing so, he’s created different difficulties. He’s signalled to young people where his priorities lie. Unless Reform can offset the eye-watering cost of the policy by massive cuts elsewhere, this is a spending pledge. Reform is bribing older voters at the expense of their children and grandchildren.
Farage is not the only one at it. The siren calls of the Greens, the SNP and some even in the Cabinet to borrow more to pay for everything from increased defence spending to energy bills come from a similarly depressing and dishonest school of thought. Defer the pain, hike up national debt, and let another generation pay later.
One reason Reform’s decision to commit to the triple lock is so noteworthy is that Farage is the only person who could have given Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats the political cover to have a proper debate – both internally and more importantly, with the public – about the cost of keeping this political sacred cow alive.
The triple lock places a considerable burden on taxpayers when other demands on public funds, notably NHS spending for the same demographic of older Brits, are also set to rocket. The exchequer, facing financial difficulties, will have to spend that aforementioned £15.5bn in 2030 because of this policy. In the run-up to the election, struggling younger voters will rightly ask where they come in the pecking order.
The triple lock’s defenders point out that some pensioners are asset-rich but income-poor. This may be true, but three quarters of pensioners own their homes outright and 70 per cent have private pensions. It’s also a universal benefit that fails the Sir Mick Jagger test. Wealthy pensioners really don’t need it.
There had been a space for a proper discussion in the run-up to the next general election about the future of the triple lock. That now seems vanishingly unlikely. Without Reform giving the other major parties cover, policy wonks planning party manifestos will have to think again.
The Conservatives have ruled out scrapping the triple lock. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are also committed to keeping it. Ahead of the 2024 general election, the Greens, with one eye on their younger voter base, proposed changing to a double lock, ensuring pensions rise by the higher of inflation or earnings.
But none of the major political parties are being honest about its affordability. At least not in public. In private, however, there is a cross-party undercurrent of support for at least adjusting the policy.
A member of Kemi Badenoch’s Tory shadow cabinet recently told The i Paper the case for altering the lock was apparent to anyone who had looked into it.
“I think you’ll have to end up with a two-and-a-half lock,” the shadow Cabinet minister said, explaining that the payment to pensioners would have to track an average of inflation and wages over a yet-to-be determined period, perhaps over a three-year cycle.
“It was only ever a commitment for one Parliament at a time,” they added. “So I can see a world where the next manifesto has a slightly different formulation of the numbers.”
The Shadow Cabinet minister was keen to stress that this was not Conservative Party policy as detailed work had not been done. Probably Badenoch will see no benefit in deviating from the political consensus when she must regain the voters Reform has attracted before she can even think of recapturing the centre ground.
And while the Tories are privately musing about the triple lock, Reform’s decision to adopt it wholesale gives us some insight into its current thinking. To the dismay of the Reform purists, entryist Tories such as Jenrick now control a once radical party’s fiscal plans. Which other Tory shibboleths will now also become Reform policies?
What’s more, if Reform is to win a majority, then gaining the support of young voters – particularly now that 16-year-olds can vote – will be crucial for their success in the next election. Expect Zack Polanski’s Greens to make the case for abandoning the triple lock more explicitly.
Meanwhile, Jenrick’s insistence that his new party adopts an orthodoxy that even his former colleagues in the shadow cabinet are debating shows Reform are no longer the radicals. Instead, Farage’s top team can persuade themselves to take the path of least resistance.
Jenrick, Reform’s treasury spokesman, says he will pay the commitment to the triple lock by cutting “tens of billions” of pounds of waste from government spending and will soon announce “the most radical proposals to cutting welfare in this country’s history”.
He’ll have to dig deep and persuade voters these cuts are viable. Despite Reform’s best efforts at waste-cutting, several of the councils run by the party – including Kent, North Northamptonshire and Derbyshire – are raising taxes instead.
In November, Farage ditched a previous promise to deliver tax cuts worth £90bn a year as he sought to strengthen the party’s credibility on economic policy. With its commitment to the triple lock, Reform is in danger of repeating the same errors: jumping feet-first into fiscal commitments and having to unpick them later.
By committing to the policy so early in the Parliamentary cycle – three whole years away from the general election – Farage and Jenrick have made a rod for their own backs and limited spending pledges elsewhere. With other pressing claims on the public finances, they may come to regret it.
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