“The popular view that the elderly won at the expense of the young is not far from the truth. It’s enough to buy the elderly vote,” said a leading elderly activist Labour.
The triple lock ensures that the annual increase in the state pension (inflation or average wage increase) is kept below 2.5 percent, and both Labour and the Conservatives have committed to continuing the policy.
The Conservatives have announced that they will add another element to the lockdown to ensure that pensioners’ tax thresholds are raised alongside the state pension. This is a policy called “triple lock plus”.
But Dennis Reid, head of the campaign group Silver Voice, said, “The popular view that the elderly won at the expense of the young in the last election is not far from the truth.”
Reid said that apart from the triple lock policy, very few measures were taken during the election to benefit older voters.
“The parties seem to believe that their commitment to the triple lock policy will be enough to buy the votes of older people and that they can then turn their attention to other target groups. “The triple security is just another safeguard to prevent further delays for pensioners,” he added.
“None of the major parties have attempted to address the very low basic state pension, which pushes all pensioners without other significant incomes into the poverty line.
“Neither party has addressed the growing and significant gap between the old and new state pensions, and support for Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) is ambiguous among the Conservatives and non-existent in Labour,” he said.
Those receiving the full new state pension – men born after 6 April 1951 and women born after 6 April 1953 – will receive £221.20 per week. However, those who retired before this date will be able to receive a smaller amount, called the basic state pension. For single people, this will rise to just £169.50 per week – £2,688.40 cheaper over the year.
Campaigners have previously called for this gap to be closed.
An estimated 3.6 million Wasp women would have been due to receive their pension at 60, but now they have had to wait another five to six years because the state pension age is now the same as for men.
The Liberal Democrats, SNP and Greens have come out strongly in favour of a compensation scheme after the PHSO found the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guilty of administrative failings in failing to properly inform Wasp women of the change to their retirement age.
The Conservative government made no response to the PHSO report in March for months before Rishi Sunak called an election, and Labour did not promise compensation.
Mr Reed said the manifestos had made “sweeping promises” on childcare and for working families, while the only “concrete proposal” on pension reform was the triple lock plus – which “will give very modest reductions on increases already baked into the tax system. And to rub salt into the wounds, neither party has come up with radical proposals to solve the social care crisis, having had five years to do so.”
Reid’s comments, a former executive director of local government think tank LGIU, come as other campaign groups call for policymakers to do more for older people.
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “From Age UK’s perspective, the biggest failure of election manifestos is the general lack of serious political intent to address the realities of population ageing in order to maximise opportunities and manage social risks. “While most election manifestos correctly recognise the importance of tackling inequalities, older people are rarely mentioned in this context.
Furthermore, there is no acknowledgement of the existence of age discrimination that affects the lives of some older people and some younger people, and there are few proposals to ensure that older people’s voices are heard more loudly in the corridors of power when decisions affecting older people are made.
Angela Madden, chair of the Wasp campaign, said it seemed the two major parties had “abandoned” the women of Wasp. She said politicians “have rightly found the funds to compensate victims of other scandals”, so “why can’t we do the same for Waspi women?” asked Jean Short, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC).
She said it was “heartening” that parties had heeded the convention’s call to maintain the triple lock, but added that “it is not enough to lift people living solely on the state pension out of poverty”. Tax exemptions will be restored to current levels, with inflation-linked increases from 2022 to 2024, and annual increases in line with inflation, but even the triple lock plus cannot achieve this.
“If this were to happen, the current tax threshold would be just over £13,000 and most pensioners would pay no tax. By 2028, all but the poorest retirees and lowest paid workers would be paying tax.” Carol Easton, chief executive of the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “The major parties’ manifestos have gaps in several areas, and there is very little in their election pledges about planning for ageing.
“The next government must urgently review how the state treats people in their 60s, beyond the triple lockdown. Pensions have changed: but government policy and employer practice have not kept up