Older people will see state pensions rise by 10.1% next April

Older people are giving a sigh of relief, as the Chancellor has pledged to restore the triple lock in 2023, which will see a 10.1 per cent increase on state pensions and pension credit next April.

Silver Voices and Age UK have been campaigning to restore the triple lock since it was suspended last autumn. The triple lock is designed to protect the value of the state pension.

It was introduced back in 2010 to ensure the value of the state pension was not overtaken by three separate measures of inflations - average earnings, prices as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) or 2.5 per cent.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, said: “Our campaign culminated with our huge petition, which according to change.org has been the fastest growing petition in the UK during November.

“The fact that the Triple Lock has been restored, despite the dire economic circumstances, will make it harder for politicians in the future to remove this vital safeguard.”

Silver Voices also wants to get rid of the distinction between old and new state pensions, support 1950s women in their compensation claim for missed pension years and unfreeze pensions for British people living abroad.

'Extremely important for older people'

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, also welcomed the restoration of the triple lock next year and the uprating of pension credit in line with inflation.

She said these are “extremely important for older people, particularly for the many with no other income to fall back on, including hundreds of thousands of older women, and we welcome them wholeheartedly.

“We thank all the older people and their friends and allies who campaigned so hard for these things in recent months, and we thank the government for listening.”

However the news was not welcomed by everyone, with James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation, calling it a "crude and wasteful way of looking after those pensioners who are in need, because it means handing more and more cash to the large numbers of pensioners who are quite comfortably off.

"Instead of prioritizing cash for all pensioners, a government motivated by fairness and careful use of public money would find ways to target help more accurately on those pensioners who really need it, and avoid more handouts to the 3 million pensioners who live in households with more than £1 million in assets."

How much will the state pension go up by?

From April 2023:

The new flat-rate state pension (for people who reached state pension age after April 2016) will be £203.85 a week (currently £185.15)

The new rate for the old basic state pension (for those who reached state pension age before April 2016) will be £156.20 a week (currently £141.85).