Readers say overseas aid should be suspended – NOT pension triple lock

Readers are adamant that the triple state pension guarantee must be honored in the fall budget – despite the ill health of public finances.

Last week, we invited readers to suggest how Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt could close the massive £50 billion black hole in the country’s finances. The government will announce its plans on 17 November. Plenty of smart ideas have been put forward to cut government spending. Most called for a cut in annual foreign aid, which is currently set at 0.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Some also believe that it is time to abolish unfunded public sector retirement plans, with taxpayers often being required to partially fund the pensions paid to retirees. Such luxurious, defined benefit plans are now a rarity in the private sector because they are so expensive for companies to maintain.

But when it comes to the triple lock guarantee and the state pension, the opinion is almost universal: The government should stick to the guarantee and increase the state pension by the highest inflation rate, 2.5 percent or income, in April next year. That would mean an increase of 10.1 percent. The government has yet to confirm whether the increase will be implemented.

Pat McLaughlin, of Ringwood, Hampshire, says foreign aid should be suspended until the country is out of the financial quagmire it is in. But the triple state pension guarantee, he says, must be maintained, especially after it was broken last year in light of the strong rebound in earnings after leave and lockdown.

Then Chancellor Sunak said the 8 percent increase it should have given retirees was unaffordable as the economy shot out of lockdown.

Pat, 71, who ran an exhibition and events business with his wife Judy, says ministers should no longer view the state pension as a ‘benefit’. He adds: ‘The pension is the payback period for years of hard and diligent payment of our national insurance contributions. It is outrageous that the government can tear up such an important guarantee at will. I agreed to his decision to suspend the pension guarantee last year, but if it happens again I won’t. I will never vote Conservative again and I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that among the gray voters.’

He has already informed his local Conservative MP, Sir Desmond Swayne, of his intention.

Clive Edgley, a 72-year-old former director of a building materials company near Stockport, Greater Manchester, agrees. He says: ‘Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have the opportunity to restore credibility in the Conservative government to ordinary voters like me – a retiree of modest means, but with a traditional view of the world based on integrity and honesty. This includes honoring the triple lock pension guarantee.’

Clive, who is married to Susan and has three children and seven grandchildren, admits he is better off than many retirees. He has a ‘small’ company pension to supplement his AOW. ‘There are many retirees who are worse off than I am’, he says, ‘and who have no other source of income than their state pension. The government must support them by paying the increase on the basis of the triple lock.’

Clive also believes it is time to cut or suspend foreign aid, which currently amounts to around £11 billion a year.

Janet Stevens, from Heathrow in Middlesex, spent 40 years in marketing. She believes the Conservatives will lose the vote of the retirees if they don’t respect the triple lock.

Janet, 73, keeps herself fit and busy with a lot of volunteer work. “I’m lucky,” she says. ‘I have some small pensions and no mortgage to pay. But there are plenty of people who depend on the state pension to make their household finances work. A promise is a promise and the government must keep it.’

Gary Williams, a 63-year-old retired chartered accountant, from near Sherborne in Somerset, believes the government would be justified in cutting the inflation-linked increase in the state pension to take into account the payments it made to retirees under its rule. costs – living arrangements. All retirees, he says, have received help with their energy bills (as are all households), while eight million have received additional specific living expenses for retirees.

Gary says: ‘These payments will reduce the impact of inflation on the household budgets of many retirees, so that needs to be taken into account when the government works out the increase in the state pension from April next year.’

With regard to increasing government revenue, retired management consultant Richard Lumb says windfall taxes on both oil and gas companies and banks are in order. Sunak and Hunt are reportedly planning a major tax bill on energy companies as their profits grow. In recent days, BP said it made $8.2 billion (£7.1 billion) in profits between July and September, more than double the same period last year.

About oil and gas companies, 67-year-old Richard, from Keyworth in Nottinghamshire, says a ‘huge windfall tax is in order’.

About banks, he says: ‘They have behaved horribly in recent years, paying savers next to nothing and making tens of billions of pounds in profit.’

He adds: “Every time bank rates rise, like Thursday by 0.75 percentage point, they do little for savers. It’s insulting. The banks should also be punished for closing the last branches in communities like my big village.’

Gold-plated pension schemes in the public sector should be phased out, according to Robin Ede from the Bournemouth area. The 79-year-old retired financial advisor says it’s crazy that taxpayers often have to support payments to retirees from these plans when there’s a gap between employee pension contributions and payments to retirees.

He asks: ‘Isn’t it about time these arrangements were closed? Then we would all, whether we work in the public or private sector, let our future pensions be determined by how much we invest and the performance of the stock market. It would bring about a sense of togetherness, rather than the prevailing ‘them and us’ view of pensions.