As fears grow that the government will ditch its Manifesto promise to reinstate the Triple Lock the NPC is calling on all members and friends to write to their MP as a matter of urgency. We have produced a template below.
Find out who your MP is on the Parliament website
Download the letter template
Dear MP,
The National Pensioners Convention (NPC) is an umbrella organisation made up of pensioner groups, retired associations of trade unions, charities related to older people and individual members. The organisation in run by pensioners for pensioners and is the largest campaigning organisation for older people in the UK
The objective of NPC is that every pensioner has the right to choice, dignity, respect, independence and financial security as an integral and valued member of society.
We are writing to all MPs in the UK now because of the current uncertainty over the future of the triple lock, which rules that the state pension must rise in line with whichever is highest - inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. If the triple lock is reinstated in April, it would allow pensions to potentially rise by more than 10%.
The suspension of the triple lock for 2022 was not necessary and the 3.1% set in September 2021 was quickly overtaken by inflation the next month. By the time pensioners received their rise in April 2022, that (and more) was swallowed up by huge hikes in energy and other bills.
Older people spend a larger percentage of their fixed income on energy and therefore have to cut spending on other essentials such as food. These decisions are critical to the health and well-being of older people, especially those with ill health and disabilities.
There are currently 2.8 million older households in fuel poverty, including 1.3 million living on lower incomes as at October 2022. In addition, from October onwards, a further 1.8 million older households, including 620,000 living on lower incomes will be living in fuel poverty[1].
As the cost-of-living crisis gathers pace we fear that those on fixed and low incomes, will see more poverty and an increase in malnutrition, winter deaths, and ill health due to the inability to heat cold and damp homes and afford nutritional food.
We are writing to you now because we have yet another period of uncertainty following yet another new Prime Minister and a Chancellor who are not willing to commit to fulfilling the Conservative Party manifesto pledge when elected in 2019 to keep the triple lock for the length of this parliament.
We would ask that you vote, if necessary, in the House of Commons, to make absolutely clear to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in any financial proposals made after the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), the State Pension must rise in line with whichever is highest - inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.
The NPC understands very well the implications of the suspension of the triple lock for 2022. Any loss is never recouped, and the spending power of pensioners is reduced in a climate of raging inflation. The increase the triple lock gives is cumulative and impacts not just on the pensioners of today, but those who follow in the future. As it stands, the workers of today will not see the true value of the state pension when they retire.
Yours sincerely