The argument the floor rated highest was not that the triple lock must never change, but that its savings should not be earmarked for a new care service. No won comfortably, and the debate repeatedly turned on whether the proposed link joined two urgent problems or merely concealed the cost of each.
The leading No voice called instead for “a total reorganisation and refocusing of the welfare state”. Others accepted that pensions may need reform: one said the lock “should be replaced with a single lock on average earnings growth”, but rejected an NHS-style care system as the destination. The distinction mattered: opposition to this funding plan was not always a defence of the status quo.
Yes voters made the fiscal case directly. The floor’s most-respected Yes argument said the triple lock is “unaffordable” as the population ages; another voter, aged 65, supported scrapping it while warning that “what the govt does with the saving is another matter”. That qualification echoed the No side’s central objection: the proposed care funding might arrive later than the pension savings, and could create a fresh, costly commitment.
The room also sounded wary of politicians’ promises. One No voter said the government could “barely run a bath”, while another called the proposed saving a “politicians lie”. On the other side, Yes arguments often favoured replacing the triple lock even when they were unconvinced by the care plan itself: the two policies did not always travel together in voters’ minds.
The result was a rejection of the proposed bargain, not a settled answer to either pension reform or social care. In this chamber, the link between them drew more suspicion than the idea of changing the triple lock alone.
71 Opinions
You fund social care by a total reorganisation and refocusing of the welfare state
I was on the fence on this. Then I thought about how the current government can barely run a bath, let alone another NHS-style anything.
We need pension reform but the idea of an NHS style social care system is lunacy. Get the NHS right first and prove it can be fit for the 21st Century.
Retirees shouldn’t have to compensate for inflation.
Pensioners? Pensioners who have paid into the system is his answer? Not illegal immigrants, not daily payments to house of Lords. Not half the country on PIP. Pensioners is his answer. Lord help us!
Absolutely not. The triple lock is in place for a reason and it was another promise never meant to be broken.
C’mon, for once in your miserable lives, look after those that got you to here. You politicians have to start somewhere, make the stand here … eh 💥🎼
More gaslighting by the government
This is a typical smokescreen. UK State pensions are pathetic; but Politicians are always mithering about the x3 Lock. You don’t trash a poor pension to create yet another State funded boondoggle. Properly fund Pensions - and address the pension apartheid represented by the Public Sector. Prepare a costed Social Care strategy & define beneficiaries. Issue is immigration & economic migrants posing as refugees are a drain on UK. Deport & fund care properly. Look after Britons.
This would hit exactly the wrong people. Our state pension is inadequate compared with other European countries and those for whom it is their only income face real hardship, whilst allowing the pension to be degraded will be just another betrayal of the generations to come. Instead we should impose extra taxes on wealthy pensioners. So many of the boomer generation have got fat at the expense of their juniors.