The cost of bailing out the financial system after the 2008 crash was eventually borne overwhelmingly by those least responsible for it and least able to pay. It’s normal to wonder how the (probably even more vast) cost of the pandemic response will be paid for in future years. The proposal by the Social Market Foundation (Coronavirus UK: Call to scrap ‘triple lock’ on pensions after crisis, 14 April) is a foretaste of policies to come. To ask the older generation to face cuts in their income, before making proposals to limit higher pay or imposing taxes on extreme wealth, is almost unbelievable. But so was George Osborne’s decision to derive 80% of the cost of his programme from cuts and only 20% from increased taxes. Thousands of elderly people have died as a result of that decision. We have been warned. The claim by the thinktank that society is “making sacrifices to protect its elderly” sounds tin-eared considering what is happening in care homes.
Jeremy Cushing
Exeter
• The Social Market Foundation’s proposal that “the economic cost of the emergency measures deployed to manage the pandemic should be shared fairly between old and young” takes no account of the fact that the old are already paying disproportionately with their lives, as the mortality is significantly higher in the over-70s. The government can expect to make significant savings on the pensions of those who die of coronavirus before considering scrapping the triple lock on state pensions. This proposal is a thinly disguised attempt to force those who have already contributed throughout their younger lives to pay twice.
Dr Michael Griffiths
Caerphilly
• The Social Market Foundation reckons the triple lock, having caused the UK state pension to increase faster than earnings, should be reviewed so that pensioners pay their share of the bill for the coronavirus. Everyone should beware of such an intergenerational divide-and-rule tactic, which fails to acknowledge the UK’s appallingly low state pension: 29% of average earnings compared with the Netherlands (100.6%), Portugal (94.9) and the OECD average (62.9%). The upward movement of the UK state pension is in everyone’s long-term interest, especially those some way off retirement.
Ian Watson
Glasgow
• I’ve been a beneficiary of the triple lock on state pensions for a number of years, but would be happy for it to be replaced with a “double lock” as suggested by the Social Market Foundation.
Those of working age face lost income and redundancies during a lockdown aimed at shielding those at greatest risk: a group largely consisting of older people. So, as the country emerges from the crisis, it seems only fair that older generations should bear a proportion of necessary future tax rises and welfare reforms. So I would support the SMF’s proposal to link future state pension increases to earnings or inflation, whichever is higher. Pensions would still rise, but less quickly, thus reducing the financial burden on the working-age population.
Mike Pender
Cardiff
• Rather than cancelling the pensions triple lock to help pay for the pandemic, more logical suggestions are raising the tax on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains, and a wealth tax on property and financial assets. I remember pensioners living in poverty when I was younger. I don’t wish to see the return of such suffering.
Malcolm Pugh
Ipswich, Suffolk
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