It has been on the Conservative’s agenda to end the pensions triple lock, which guarantees that the UK pension will increase by either a minimum of 2.5% or the level of inflation in line with annual earnings growth, whichever is highest. As a result, pensioners could potentially be worse off.
In the Conservative’s manifesto, the pension triple lock was controversially downgraded to a double lock; where the 2.5% pension increase was removed from the equation and pensions could only rise to the highest percentage between inflation and earnings growth. With no majority Government and a hung parliament, the controversial move could be blocked in favour of struggling pensioners as the DUP policy maintains a strong focus to “support” pensioners, this could limit or slow down Conservative plans to reduce the triple lock.