The article about whether the pensions triple lock should be ditched omits several key facts (‘Costing billions’: is the pensions triple lock a lifeline or simply unaffordable?, 12 September). The triple lock was introduced in 2010 to attempt to reinstate the value of the state pension relative to average earnings. The new state pension is just over £12,547 per annum, as your reporter says; older pensioners get a basic £9,615. Both are well below the European average, which is over €16,000 (about £13,800) per year. The UK median wage is above £39,000 a year. Moreover, the age at which the UK state pension becomes payable is among the highest in Europe.
The discussion on the affordability of the state pension seems to regard it as expenditure for no return. It is not. Pensioners spend money into their local economy, which generates tax revenues in the form of VAT and income tax from younger people who are dependent on pensioner money for their employment. Better-off pensioners pay income tax in the usual way. In fact, a pensioner with any income at all above the new state pension will pay tax on it as the personal tax free allowance is now £12,570, only £23 above their pension income.
The British Chamber of Commerce has called for the triple lock to be scrapped, and the money saved to be put towards tackling the youth unemployment crisis. This is a specious argument, designed to make scrapping the triple lock attractive to young people. This country can afford to support both its old and young with a decent standard of living.
Sue Hawthorne
Haddington, East Lothian
I think the triple lock should go. It’s done its job and brought the state pension up to a respectable proportion of average earnings and I don’t think it would be right for pensioners’ income to go streaking ahead of everybody else’s (UK retirees with no other income will not pay tax on new £13,000 state pension, No 10 says, 15 September). What’s more, I think pensioners – like me – ought to pay income tax and national insurance, just like working people. Apart from the morality of paying tax, the state is spending at least as much on our welfare as on anybody else’s and it seems only right that we should contribute if we can.
Perhaps I’m more fortunate than others. My sole income is the state pension but I travel abroad, I donate to charities, I give decent gifts to the grandchildren and I still end up with a little cash left over at the end of the year. I’m from the generation that was taught how to live frugally yet I enjoy my quality of life: I can buy whatever I want but I probably don’t want to buy that much. I’m content.
I know that not every state pensioner can say the same as me. There are too many from all age groups living stressful, impoverished lives which is all the more reason why I ought to pay tax and national insurance if I can. And if I wanted to ask our government for anything in return I would say: spend some of this money on finding me an NHS dentist.
Name and address supplied
A more fundamental question about the rates paid for the state pension needs addressing. Having paid in for 46 years, I get a state pension of £241.30 per week. The minimum wage for a 37.5-hour week for an under-18 apprentice is £300. Why does the government, of whatever persuasion, think that pensioners can exist on less than an 18-year-old?
Chris Moran
Stockport
Your article about the triple lock is one of many arguing that it costs too much. I wonder how many of those in favour of this do so from the comfort of knowing that they will also enjoy a generous private, or company, pension, on top of their state pension, when they retire. Perhaps they should try living on a state pension – that might cause them to moderate their position very quickly indeed. The photograph you used with your article online, showing three old ladies sunning themselves on deckchairs, may suit the argument to picture retirement as one long holiday, but let me assure you that for many pensioners, it isn’t.
Lauren White
Lincoln
The state pension currently costs about £154bn a year, but what about pension tax relief of about £70bn a year? The bulk of pension tax relief goes to high earners many paying 40% or 45% tax and getting relief at that rate worth on average about £8,750 a year despite the fact that very few pensioners pay higher-rate income tax and the average basic rate taxpayer getting about £1,000 a year. Is it perhaps that handing out money to poor or average-income people is a bad thing while tax allowances for the rich is a good thing?
John Boxall
Frome, Somerset
