Link to this page: https://secure.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1083/30676
From The Socialist newspaper, 22 April 2020
Tory think tank proposes attack on pensions
Roger Bannister, Liverpool Socialist Party
It was inevitable that the Tory government would try to offload the costs of dealing with the coronavirus crisis from their rich backers and onto the backs of working people.
Now, a report by the Tory-backed Social Market Foundation (SMF), has recommended that the first attack should be on the country's pensioners, by abolishing the 'triple lock' mechanism for increasing the state pension, and replacing it with a 'double lock'.
The triple lock has been in existence since 2011, and provides that the state pension should rise by the greatest of price inflation, average earnings or 2.5% each year.
At the time of its introduction, it was seen as a mechanism to gradually raise the value of the state pension, but it has long been an aim of the Tories to get rid of it. However, whenever they have proposed it, public protest has forced them to back off. The proposed double lock would remove the 2.5% element from the mechanism.
The state pension is not high - currently set at £175.20 a week for people reaching pension age on or after 6 April 2016, and only £134.25 a week for everybody else, (currently the majority of pensioners).
Of the 36 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UK has the lowest pension as calculated proportionately against what they call the working wage for each country.
Following the attacks on final salary pension schemes, encouraged by the Tories, in the private sector, it is clear that Britain is now sitting on a time-bomb of pensioner poverty.
Growing numbers of workers are retiring with inadequate pensions, leaving them struggling to make ends meet.
The SMF proposal should therefore be rejected. The National
Pensioners Convention, the main organisation representing pensioners in Britain, has long campaigned to retain the triple lock.
Now, the trade union leaders need to speak out against this proposal and prepare their members to take action should the Tories press ahead with this it.
The Labour Party has previously guaranteed to maintain pensions up to 2025, but that ignores the need to significantly increase the state pension.
Keir Starmer's newly appointed Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions, Johnathan Reynolds, has blandly stated that the UK needs "serious long-term thinking" about pensions, which could mean anything!
Labour has to be clear about whether it supports pensioners, or simply sees them, like the Tories, as a potential area of cost cutting.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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In The Socialist 22 April 2020:
Frontline workers speak out
Where's our PPE? Where's our testing? Where's our money?
London bus drivers' action over safety stops front door boarding
Care homes coronavirus scandal: blood on their hands
PPE shortages: "I feel so bloody angry"
Management tells carers PPE would 'worry' residents
Councils must demand control of supplies and reversal of austerity
More dispatches from the front: 'There are so many more patients dying'
World economy
World economic crisis: A Marxist approach to the coronavirus crunch
Workplace news
No 'back to school' until outbreak is under control and trade union agreed safety arrangements
DWP: Action on workers' safety, and protection of pay and conditions needed
JD Sports: Shut up shop and give us full pay!
RMT: Lift the suspension of Steve Hedley
Bromley Libraries 'restructure' in middle of pandemic!
Lenin at 150
Coronavirus news
National plan for testing needed
Capitalist press attacks Tory incompetence
Tory think tank proposes attack on pensions
Shocking increase in domestic violence killings
US private healthcare system in meltdown
Workplace safety
The history of struggle to make the workplace safe
Campaigns
Excellent support for Socialist Party special appeal
Why I joined the Socialist Party
Clapping, driving, postering - for workers' rights
The role of the Socialist during the corona crisis
Policies that really protect the NHS
Coronavirus: Students' charter
Socialism the Podcast: What do our listeners think?
Readers' opinion
Covid-19 patient speaks out: fantastic support from under-resourced health workers
Going viral: Socialist comments and letters
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