‘The triple lock has worked,’ Theresa May’s election manifesto read in 2017. ‘It is now time to set pensions on an even course. So we will keep our promise to maintain the triple lock until 2020, and when it expires we will introduce a new double lock, meaning that pensions will rise in line with the earnings that pay for them, or in line with inflation – whichever is highest.’

Although the Conservatives went into the general election campaign set for a landslide, their lead over Labour bled away and they ended up eight seats short of a majority. They abandoned plans to reform the triple lock as part of their confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP, keeping them in office if barely in power.

The new shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith recommended revising the triple lock in 2021 when a post-Covid wage rebound meant the state pension was set to increase by almost 9 per cent. Griffith wrote: ‘Using this statistical anomaly of a near double-digit rate of wage growth to increase pensions would, I believe, be wrong.’ He also said the triple lock was an ‘unfair........

© The Spectator