Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the change during his Labour Party conference speech, describing it as an adjustment to the existing policy. According to the Express, the Government also intends to ensure that the state pension does not fall below a set proportion of average earnings over time, providing another mechanism intended to maintain pensioners’ position relative to wages.
The current triple lock guarantees that the state pension rises every April by whichever is highest: 2.5 per cent, inflation or average earnings growth. The proposed system will remove earnings growth as an automatic annual measure from April 2030, while preserving the other two elements.
How the Revised State Pension Guarantee Will Work
Sir Steve Webb, a former Liberal Democrat MP who served as pensions minister during the Coalition Government and helped introduce the triple lock in 2011, explained the revised arrangement on BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme.
He said pensioners would continue to receive an annual increase matching inflation, while the 2.5 per cent floor would apply when inflation was lower. “Every year pensioners will definitely get [an increase in line with] inflation,” he said, adding that if inflation were particularly low, payments would still rise by 2.5 per cent.
A further safeguard will link the state pension to a specified share of average wages. Webb illustrated the mechanism using a figure of 30 per cent of the average wage, explaining that if this represented the pension’s starting position, it would not be allowed to fall below that share.
According to Webb, this means pension payments would continue to reflect wage growth over the longer term, even though annual earnings growth would no longer form one of the three automatic measures used under the existing triple lock. Burnham similarly said the pension would continue to “hold its value relative to earnings over time”.
Webb described the arrangement as “not quite as draconian as it sounded”, while acknowledging that it was expected to reduce government spending compared with retaining the current policy.
Pensioners Would Receive Less Than Under the Existing Triple Lock
The central financial effect is that state pension payments would still rise, but not as quickly as they would if the present triple lock remained unchanged.
According to the Express, Webb estimated that by 2040, roughly a decade after the new system begins, annual state pension payments would be about £1,000 lower per pensioner than they would have been under the existing triple lock.
He stressed that this does not mean pension payments themselves would fall. Instead, they would continue to increase each year by at least 2.5 per cent, but the cumulative rise would be smaller than under a system that also automatically captured periods of stronger earnings growth.
Other state pension changes are already under way. The state pension age began moving gradually from 66 to 67 in April 2026 and is due to reach 67 by April 2028. The Government has also announced a planned tax exemption for people whose only income is the state pension without additional amounts. The full new state pension currently pays just under £12,550 a year, close to the £12,570 personal allowance. Ministers are expected to provide further details of that measure at the Autumn Budget 2027.
