Claer Barrett is right to question the need for the state pension to increase in real terms (faster than inflation). This is the debate about the triple lock.

But Claer extends this discussion of the need to slow down real increases with an argument that young workers are paying for something that they’ll never get.

She points out that some young people are beset by repaying student loans, high housing costs and high payroll deductions.

It’s true that what Claer Barrett has  dubbed the cost of working crisis can mean ambitious young graduates are taxed at 71 pence in the pound on the top slice of their earnings. But it is a stretch to say that this is down to a pension that they’ll never get.

Suffocatingly high tax rates are compounded by the unfairness of funding a benefit that’s unlikely to exist by the time they themselves reach retirement age.

I remember when I was in my twenties, I was told that in the 2020s there would be no state pension , every young generation feels vulnerable to exploitation without any historic proof. Even in the years of Thatcher through to Blair when the state pension fell through inflation in real terms, it did not disappear. Today we have a better state pension

As a blog comment rightfully points out

The thing that is never discussed here is that ending the triple lock does not mean reducing the value of the state pension. The triple lock was brought in because British pensioners were amongst the poorest in Europe.

Rising by the largest of inflation, earnings or 2% guaranteed a gradual increase in value.

It worked, rates of pensioner poverty have plummeted. It had now fulfilled its role, but that doesn’t mean allowing the value of pensions to decrease again, rather it should be replaced with something that maintains the value without decreases or increases.

I agree with this. What is needed is a promise to our children and their children that the state pension will be maintained at not less than it is today and that where the country’s economy is “in surplus” that we consider paying more either through the state pension or through incentives to save more through the workplace.

We should make it clear, through clearly costed arguments, that we can offer through pension credit, ongoing support in terms of cash in hand, housing costs and healthcare – to the poorest. That that is a long-term inter-generational promise that plays down through the family and not just over decades.

The current craze is to promote the threat of AI as a 10% chance of the extinction of humanity within 10 years. It is not surprising that youngsters feel the way  previous generations regarded the threat of nuclear weapons. The threat was not there but what prevailed was a regard for decency. The argument that we will not have a state paying a basic wage in retirement to all UK citizens who have been here  a minimum period is a foolish one.

In other areas that touch on young and old – housing – we are at last seeing a correction. Housing, starting with leaseholds but I suspect spreading to all homes will become more affordable. As Claer rightly points out

Around three-quarters of pensioners own their own homes, mostly mortgage-free. They have done well from the huge acceleration in house prices while stagnant earnings growth has destroyed housing affordability for the young.

I hope that the houses owned by pensioners and those approaching that stage of life will pass down in time and that houses and particularly flats will become more affordable for young people while housing pays for the costs of growing old. We need a culture of re-mortgaging high equity property owned by my (older) generation to pay for social care which this country cannot afford to pay for from the Treasury.

My final point is my most immediate point , that the promise of a better state pension which was made in 2011 has now come true. We have had 15 years of real growth through the triple lock that should not be taken away by future Governments. The pledge made when the triple lock is ended should be is to maintain the value of the state pension with no capacity for Governments  to reduce it. That should be the law of the land. We owe it to our children who will owe it to theirs.