The journalist who spotted the change to the state pension.
I heard it first last night from the great Paul Lewis
There will be yet another major(ish) Treasury pre-Budget announcement – this one about state pension – at 1030 tonight (Sunday) I will tweet it with analysis at that time.
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) November 23, 2025
I went to bed and woke to find this.
A 4.8% rise in the basic old state pension and the standard new state pension means they will rise from 6 April 2026 from £176.45 a week to £184.90 (old SP) and from £230.25 a week to £241.30 (new SP). All other bits SERPS, GRB, deferral, protected amount will rise by 3.8%
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) November 23, 2025
So far so good , but neither so simple nor explicable.
Govt confirms state pensions will rise with triple lock in April, gives approximate figures, stresses the bigger cash rise for minority on new state pension not the smaller cash rise in the old, & ignores that all additions, paid mainly with old state pension, will only rise with…
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) November 23, 2025
Begging Sarah’s question
Why are there 2 levels of state pension, old and new? How is that fair???
— Sarah Bond 💙 🌻🧡 (@SheLovesTweets) November 23, 2025
Paul has an answer. though I don’t sense he is quite on side!
About 37% (4.84million) state pensioners get the new state pension but not all get the full amount – many are reduced for various reasons. The rest get the old state pension which is lower. Some get less than the full basic pension but many others get extras on top. It’s…
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) November 23, 2025
And it appears that this is all from a press release from The Exchequer and more particularly the Chancellor
The Telegraph wasn’t quite as impressed.
The announcement of a two tier state pension increase , on with a triple lock, one perhaps not, was made alongside an increase on universal credit of 2.5% above inflation. This alongside changes to child benefit are what will make the bulk of the welfare bill the Telegraph are moaning at.
This is the weirdest way of leaking the budget in advance and the press have decided to fight it out over whether a crackdown on universal credit can do the trick, this from the Guardian.
Well done Paul Lewis for spotting that the state pension is no longer triple locked for everyone.
As a pension blog, I am not going into Universal Benefits or the affordability of the child benefit changes. I want to know how a part of the state pension isn’t getting the increase promised by the triple lock.
I don’t think this is new. I am fairly certain that it has applied since the new state pension was introduced. It is only effective when the rise in average earnings or 2.5% is higher than the inflation measure.
Thanks Oldie
PO is quite right.
The new state pension is for everyone who reached pension age (then 65 for men, 63 for women) from 6 April 2016.
A full new state pension required at least 35 qualifying years of NI contributions. If you had fewer than 10 qualifying years, there was no pension.
Even without contributions, however, you may still be eligible for certain state benefits, like Pension Credit, or have credits on your NI record from things like caring for a child or claiming certain other benefits.
Older people get the old state pension. (Men born before 6 April
1951, women before 6 April 1953.)
Last year’s increases for those on the old state pension were a mix of 4.1% (triple lock) and 1.7% (CPI).
So this is not new(s), Henry.
Not new. You could come on one of my Older People and their Money training courses to find out why, what’s the reason Guarantee Pension Credit is uprated differently to other benefits, how your choice about taking a DC pension can have a huge effect on benefits, why can increasing pension contributions make you immediately better off etc. etc. “Astonishingly good value, says Gareth Morgan”
As others have said, different rates of increase have been going on for years. Parts of my state pension go up by the triple lock, parts by CPI and other parts by different amounts each year for which no explanation is given on the state pension statement (and have varied between 20% and very little).
OK – so Paul and me and 99.9% of the population had no idea that the state pension goes up by different amounts – what does that say but that a) it is complicated and b)no one can complain why some people have it going up at 4.1% and some people have some of their’s going up at 1.7%. What makes older people less deserving of the triple lock? Maybe we should have a pre-97 beach strip for the “old state pensioners”.