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Nigel Farage and Reform UK has pledged
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to keep the triple lock pension just
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like the Tories and Labour.
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The triple lock makes sure that pensions
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get a rise of every year with whatever
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is highest out of 2.5% the inflation
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rate or wage growth. Some thought that
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Farage would come up with another policy
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for pensioners because he'd called the
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triple lock unaffordable. Is it fair? Is
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it affordable for future generations?
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Here is what top economists and
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financial commentators in Westminster
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and the city of London think about it.
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The triple lock is obviously
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unsustainable. At some point in the
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future it will consume 100% of
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expenditure theoretically because it's
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going up above what we can afford to
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pay. So ideally I'd like to see it tied
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to GDP growth. In practice probably just
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tied to inflation. The public in general
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are pretending that we live in a rich
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thriving economy and we haven't done for
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many years. Look if we could get to
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economic growth of 3 or 4% which is what
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it was in 1990s then the triple lock
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wouldn't be an issue. We could afford
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you know slugging along at barely 1%
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then we simply don't have the money for
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this or many other things.
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>> I think if you were trying to win an
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election you can see why they've done it
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but I I think you know the UK's public
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finances are so unsustainable at the
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moment. The state pension is just one of
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those big items and the triple lock is
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something that pushes it up in a way
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that is quite arbitrary and and means
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that it's always going to be outpacing
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um over over a long run it's going to be
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outpacing average wage growth.
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>> I'm a young person. I don't think it's
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fair. You have It's not only about who's
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paying for it because of course you have
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the cycle where you know people when
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they were young they paid for the people
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on pension pensions then. So you know
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you constantly give back and then the
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next generation will pay for you and
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it's cyclical. Right now young people
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are looking at system that actually
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might not exist in the same way when
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it's their turn to reap the rewards. So
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it's not necessarily fair. A lot of the
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working age population aren't working
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anymore. So uh burden per person for the
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state pension is going up every single
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year. Health and disability benefits are
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skyrocketing. Businesses don't want to
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take on young people. The people that do
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have jobs will have the most burden and
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the lion's share of the financial
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constraint. Rachel Reeves put up
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national national employers insurance uh
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the jobs tax. One of the reasons was to
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pay for the state pension. So
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realistically we're already having this
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problem and we've seen that it's the
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only way to pay for it is through
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taxation, scrapping it, or um
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or importing more people to pay for it
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then you know or not importing more
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people but more immigration then you
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know I know which one I want. I I want
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it to be scrapped. It means in the long
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term the UK's public finances remain
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unsustainable. We know that
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right now we're kind of
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tightening fiscal policy by raising
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taxes. We can't keep doing that to pay
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for these sort of expensive policies. At
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um it will have to end
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uh but I think you know it's not going
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to be a reason for an immediate gilt
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market crisis but in 10 20 years
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increasingly pressure will come on to
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the government to get rid of it if it
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wants to avoid raising taxes to pay for
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>> So what do you think about the triple
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lock pension? Let us know in the
3:23
comments and make sure to like and
3:24
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