Reform has hired a new economic adviser, who previously claimed the annual rate hike to state pension payments had become “unsustainable”.
The insurgent party’s Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick has appointed Mitchell Palmer as one of his aides, who previously worked for the Adam Smith Institute; a free-market think tank.
This is despite Reform claiming to support the uprate mechanism, which guarantees the state pension rises by either the rate of inflation, wage growth, or 2.5 per cent; whichever is highest that year.
Earlier this week, the Nigel Farage-led party unveiled its welfare reforms if it were to lead the next Government and stated the savings made from the proposals would fund the triple lock going forward.
State pension is apparently ‘unsustainable’, according to Reform’s new economic adviser
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GETTY / GB NEWS
Yet Mr Palmer has openly criticised the policy as both costly and unsustainable during an appearance on GB News, placing him directly at odds with his new boss on a flagship issue for older voters.
Mr Palmer previously said: “The triple lock is an expensive way to ensure that pensioners have dignity in their retirement.
“Pensioners almost by definition are made better off in real terms than workers and that obviously is, one, unsustainable as the number of pensioners that each worker has to pay for increases, but, two, can be seen by those younger generations as somewhat unfair.”
He argued alternative approaches could achieve the same goal without the “unpredictable ratcheting effect” the current system produces.
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As part of his “Foreboding Fiscals” report for the Adam Smith Institute, Mr Palmer suggested that delinking the state pension from earnings and scrapping the 2.5 per cent minimum rate hike will help make sure payment growth does “not grow inexorably relative to GDP”
He added: “Instead, payments should be purely indexed to CPI or another estimate for the cost of living for pensioners (e.g., the Household Cost Index for retired people) to maintain its real value.”
In response to the questions over the appointment, a party spokesperson told The Guardian: “Unlike the Guardian, Robert believes in hiring smart people with whom he disagrees.”
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been urged to review his stance on the triple lock since getting the keys to Number 10 Downing Street.
Recent forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have forecast that the state pension will cost £10billion that intially projected when the triple lock was introduced in 2010-11.
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Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, previously said: “Recent comments from Mr Burnham may provide short-term reassurance to today’s pensioners.
“But what’s needed from all major political party leaders is a longer-term vision for how the state pension can remain fair, affordable, and sustainable not for the next three years but for the next 30 years and beyond.
“What’s clear is that public finances are under huge and increasing pressure. There’s no magic pot of money sitting to pay for state pensions – they’re paid for by today’s workers on a ‘pay as you go’ basis.
“With an ageing population and fewer workers supporting more pensioners, the current system is already creaking at the seams and without reform, the triple lock will place an unprecedented burden on working-age taxpayers, raising serious questions around intergenerational fairness.”