State pension: Triple lock should be ABOLISHED and all payments means-tested - 'Unfit for purpose!'

The triple lock pension should be scrapped as it makes already rich pensioners wealthier according to a think tank.

The Adam Smith Institute released a report that calls for a number of reforms to address “an increasingly large divide” that “has opened up in British society between generations in which the young lose out, while the elderly benefit”.

They went on to call this divide a “drag anchor on the productivity and economic growth that Britain desperately needs”.

In order to address this, they say that drastic reforms must be made to planning, tax, welfare and education.

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One of these reforms includes scrapping the triple lock which they say is “unfit for purpose”.

They write: “The pensions triple lock is inflexible by design. Ensuring that pensions are uprated by the highest measure of inflation of the three used, has resulted in a significant boost to pensioner benefits over working age benefits,” and that this level of spending is “becoming unsustainable and unjustifiable”.

According to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation the triple lock meant the average pensioner’s net income has increased by £510 a year since 2010.

Retirees are heading for a 10.1% increase to the state pension from next April, after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed that the triple lock is being protected.

Delivering the autumn statement, Mr Hunt said the Government will fulfil its pledge to protect the triple lock, meaning that the state pension will increase in line with inflation.

The full new state pension is currently £185.15 per week – so a 10.1% increase would push that figure up to £203.85.

The ASI suggest replacing the triple lock with a “smoothed earnings link” which would “enable the state pension to be hiked to deal with significant inflation shocks, but minimises situations in which it will continue to substantially outstrip earnings, or where the Government has to temporarily suspend the lock”.

Elsewhere, they have said “offering a state pension only to those with assets under £1 million would be fairly straightforward to administer, and would save the taxpayer roughly £25 billion a year”.