Workers should be given limited pay rises this year in order to protect pensioners from inflation, a Tory MP has said.
Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the Commons, urged restraint in salary increases for working age Britons to help prevent a plunge in the purchasing power of the elderly.
Sir Peter’s intervention came amid warnings of a looming cost of living crisis, with soaring energy bills and tax increases next year.
His call may raise eyebrows given that workers are set to shoulder the burden of the Government’s funding increase for social care when National Insurance is increased in the spring.
The 77-year-old told The Telegraph: “If every time inflation rises, even for temporary reasons, people in work manage to get pay increases that match that – increases that aren’t justified by shortages of labour in their field or aren’t justified by increased productivity – prices go up and actually the pensioners’ price index is probably worse than it is for others.”
Inflation-linked salary rises for the working population are not easily replicated for older adults, who “can’t go along to the pension payer and say: ‘Inflation’s gone up to five per cent, can I have five per cent more please?'”, he said.
While the state pension is protected by a “lock” that means it rises by at least the rate of inflation each year, many supplementary pensions and savings are not linked to inflation.
Sir Peter said: “If pensioners face inflation at two per cent, they will lose half their spending power in about 35 years. If inflation is five per cent, they lose half their spending power in 15 years.” Inflation rose to 5.1 per cent this month.
The Worthing West MP added that “it has a dramatic impact on pensioners if we get back into the wage inflation spiral that we had in the 70s and part of the 80s – if that spiral is allowed to develop, it eventually becomes ruinous for people in work, but it’s certainly ruinous for people on fixed retirement incomes”.
He said that if workers accepted “restraint” in pay rises, “inflation will come down much faster and we’ll become better off much faster and for much longer”, saying that controlling inflation was in the interests of all age groups.
The Tory MP sparked controversy in October when he said living on a parliamentarian’s £82,000 salary was “really grim” and argued that their pay should be the same level as professionals such as GPs, whose average salary is £100,700.
Earlier on Thursday, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he believed the planned rise in National Insurance should go ahead despite opposition from fellow Conservatives concerned about rising living cost.
— Lucy Fisher
Couldn’t make this shit up from the Tories lol. They detest the idea of working people actually being paid a wage they deserve.
If you are working and low/middle class you are voting for lower pay and higher cost of living if you vote tory.
So younger people have to pay for all of their education, generally get paid less than previous generations and won’t be able to retire at the same age or at any age due to the state pension age barrier constantly increasing yet cost of living is going up and it’s basically impossible to save for your own home unless you have the luxury of living with parents. Doesn’t make sense to me.
We’ll need about a 5% pay raise to have a chance of keeping pace with inflation. 10% would be preferable.
Capitalists really are vampires, depriving the youth of the ability to have an acceptable standard of living.
> Limited pay rises this year
In the public sector we’ve been given pay freezes or 1% rises for years. Is that not limited enough?
Not even the Nasty Party anymore,just plain and simple Cunt Party
Christ he’s my MP. For fuck sake. He’s the same twat who said MPs should be paid more to stop them from doing second jobs.
For the record I didn’t vote for him.
Fuck this guy. I should have, at minimum, a 2k p/a pay rise starting at least three years ago. Permanently. Call it 3k to be on the safe side.
How about you, your Tory cronies, and all your posh upper class clique don’t get fat pay raises? Pensioners should be getting their triple lock increase just as workers should get raises larger than inflation.
You can get fucked and stay fucked. Aye we have to deal with the shit and struggle so the elderly who by and large are pretty well insulated from it anyway don’t have to struggle ? Fuck that noise.
It is so tiring being an early 30s renter with my partner. The last 12 years have just been shit piling on shit, paying for everyone else’s fuck ups and problems..
Wait wait… So The Elderly pushed so that I’m now indebted for thousands due to tuition fees that they pushed for from there political avenue they then overrode the will of young people and pushed through the most batshit insane brexit strat ever and have forever fucked our economy interest rates are kept forever low to protect there house prices house prices that have forever turned me into a wage slave, The elderly who have pushed to keep interest rates at 0% my whole adult life.
The past two years I lost what little social life I had due to lockdowns to protect those same old fuckwits the same elderly fuckwits who as a kid used to abuse me. Who when I was a teen told me I was entitled and have spread all kinds of bigotry about me.
And now… Now after decades of abuse the only thing I have is my work because it’s literally the only thing I’m allowed to do. I’m told I need to get paid less to protect there triple locked pensions?
The Elderly are a scourge who deserve nothing else from our society.
This MP deserves a fate reserved for French aristocracy.
Should have saved more when they had the chance, shouldn’t they?
Fuck the elederly if they are going to fuck the young.
Why can’t they just sell one of their many houses that has gone up in value by at least 500% over the years?! Oh yes that’s it don’t want to give up the inheritance for the children would rather try and make everyone else suffer first
Literally every other generation in history has made sacrifices for the young except boomers. They are truly the worst.
Tory MPs should get limited oxygen to protect everyone else from them.
It’s not like The Telegraph has published this divisive ‘story’ to polarise and split the masses.
1. Fuck this old twat, he’ll be dead soon.
2. This tabloid has achieved what it wanted, ignore this tut.
TL:DR old rich cunt doesn’t like the prospect of someone taking his pocket money away and thinks everyone else’s kids and grandkids should have to suffer to save his wallet.
I especially love the “in 35 years time”, mate you’ll be dead and I’ll be you. I want the next generation to have something for themselves. Pay rises in line with inflation isn’t something that should be argued against. Don’t even pretend you’re speaking for me
Maybe the boomers should stop spending all their money on iPhones and avocado on toast and they will be able to ride out this period of inflation.
Shame the actual article is behind a paywall. Can’t trust actual headlines
inflation is already 15% and most of us won’t be getting a pay rise that high. so whilst everything will cost more we’ll be paid less.
Sorry, how do i cut the 1% i got. Bit confused.
Should i skip meals or?……..
He does have a point that inflation driven payrises will cause more inflation.
Tho at 77 he should have give his seat upto someone who makes the argument in a way that appeals to a younger demographic.
Man became and MP at 31 and has sat for 40 odd years. What the fuck would he know about pay and pay rises being related to labour shortages or increased productivity? Literally anyone can do his job and the time commitment seems minimal at best yet he trousers triple the average salary (plus or minus expenses I guess) who votes for these clowns!
Not all the elderly are wealthy, however the elderly are in a better position as a whole to withstand inflation. Younger people are going to be the ones really feeling the impact of inflation and will feel it for years to come the way things seem to be going. Brexit, climate change and another looming financial crisis are all going to make it so that young people are never as financially as comfortable as baby boomers have been, not that baby boomers wants to admit that either. We are already seeing limited to non-existent pay rises, especially in real-terms costs, so I don’t even know what rock this MP has been living under to get the impression we were getting huge raises every year.
Another out of touch Tory. When the archbishop of Canterbury said you can’t trust a Tory, he stopped short. He meant to add, because they’re all bastards.
This would be fine if we tax-payers looked to enjoy the benefits of a good pension in the future. Pay in what you will take out etc. But there’s no way I’m going to accept below inflation wages and even shitter pension contributions so they can carry on living it up on their final salaries.
There needs to be a balance, and raising NI has already penalised workers and protected pensioners.
Pay rises should happen, but they do themselves cause inflation. A better way imo would be to deflate assets like houses and reduce the cost of living.
Oh get lost.
Pensions are inflation linked, anyway.
Controlling inflation is good but wages following external commodity driven inflation is not going to fuel it anyway.
This year I received a 1.5% cost of living increase and lost an estimated third of my pension due to reforms.
This is not how you win the votes of the next generation.
Sir Peter Bottomley.
Married to ex minister Virginia Bottomley
Whose name is an anagram of
I’m am evil Tory bigot.
The millennial generation (but all workers over the last 30 years) have had a shocking run of once in a life time things….
Credit crunch
Brexit
Dealing with climate change
Knowledge that we will be worse off than our parents
Lower job security
Record costs across the board
Incoming automation
Record taxation levels
Rampant inflation
Oh and Covid 19
And now calls for reduced pay rises…
Protect the elderly? Mate their pensions are tied to inflation so they literally cannot lose.
Elderly people should be left to wander the Nevis range until death to reduce the tax burden on the young
How about corporations just take slightly lower profit margins instead?
38 comments
Workers should be given limited pay rises this year in order to protect pensioners from inflation, a Tory MP has said.
Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the Commons, urged restraint in salary increases for working age Britons to help prevent a plunge in the purchasing power of the elderly.
Sir Peter’s intervention came amid warnings of a looming cost of living crisis, with soaring energy bills and tax increases next year.
His call may raise eyebrows given that workers are set to shoulder the burden of the Government’s funding increase for social care when National Insurance is increased in the spring.
The 77-year-old told The Telegraph: “If every time inflation rises, even for temporary reasons, people in work manage to get pay increases that match that – increases that aren’t justified by shortages of labour in their field or aren’t justified by increased productivity – prices go up and actually the pensioners’ price index is probably worse than it is for others.”
Inflation-linked salary rises for the working population are not easily replicated for older adults, who “can’t go along to the pension payer and say: ‘Inflation’s gone up to five per cent, can I have five per cent more please?'”, he said.
While the state pension is protected by a “lock” that means it rises by at least the rate of inflation each year, many supplementary pensions and savings are not linked to inflation.
Sir Peter said: “If pensioners face inflation at two per cent, they will lose half their spending power in about 35 years. If inflation is five per cent, they lose half their spending power in 15 years.” Inflation rose to 5.1 per cent this month.
The Worthing West MP added that “it has a dramatic impact on pensioners if we get back into the wage inflation spiral that we had in the 70s and part of the 80s – if that spiral is allowed to develop, it eventually becomes ruinous for people in work, but it’s certainly ruinous for people on fixed retirement incomes”.
He said that if workers accepted “restraint” in pay rises, “inflation will come down much faster and we’ll become better off much faster and for much longer”, saying that controlling inflation was in the interests of all age groups.
The Tory MP sparked controversy in October when he said living on a parliamentarian’s £82,000 salary was “really grim” and argued that their pay should be the same level as professionals such as GPs, whose average salary is £100,700.
Earlier on Thursday, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he believed the planned rise in National Insurance should go ahead despite opposition from fellow Conservatives concerned about rising living cost.
— Lucy Fisher
Couldn’t make this shit up from the Tories lol. They detest the idea of working people actually being paid a wage they deserve.
If you are working and low/middle class you are voting for lower pay and higher cost of living if you vote tory.
So younger people have to pay for all of their education, generally get paid less than previous generations and won’t be able to retire at the same age or at any age due to the state pension age barrier constantly increasing yet cost of living is going up and it’s basically impossible to save for your own home unless you have the luxury of living with parents. Doesn’t make sense to me.
We’ll need about a 5% pay raise to have a chance of keeping pace with inflation. 10% would be preferable.
Capitalists really are vampires, depriving the youth of the ability to have an acceptable standard of living.
> Limited pay rises this year
In the public sector we’ve been given pay freezes or 1% rises for years. Is that not limited enough?
Not even the Nasty Party anymore,just plain and simple Cunt Party
Christ he’s my MP. For fuck sake. He’s the same twat who said MPs should be paid more to stop them from doing second jobs.
For the record I didn’t vote for him.
Fuck this guy. I should have, at minimum, a 2k p/a pay rise starting at least three years ago. Permanently. Call it 3k to be on the safe side.
How about you, your Tory cronies, and all your posh upper class clique don’t get fat pay raises? Pensioners should be getting their triple lock increase just as workers should get raises larger than inflation.
You can get fucked and stay fucked. Aye we have to deal with the shit and struggle so the elderly who by and large are pretty well insulated from it anyway don’t have to struggle ? Fuck that noise.
It is so tiring being an early 30s renter with my partner. The last 12 years have just been shit piling on shit, paying for everyone else’s fuck ups and problems..
Wait wait… So The Elderly pushed so that I’m now indebted for thousands due to tuition fees that they pushed for from there political avenue they then overrode the will of young people and pushed through the most batshit insane brexit strat ever and have forever fucked our economy interest rates are kept forever low to protect there house prices house prices that have forever turned me into a wage slave, The elderly who have pushed to keep interest rates at 0% my whole adult life.
The past two years I lost what little social life I had due to lockdowns to protect those same old fuckwits the same elderly fuckwits who as a kid used to abuse me. Who when I was a teen told me I was entitled and have spread all kinds of bigotry about me.
And now… Now after decades of abuse the only thing I have is my work because it’s literally the only thing I’m allowed to do. I’m told I need to get paid less to protect there triple locked pensions?
The Elderly are a scourge who deserve nothing else from our society.
This MP deserves a fate reserved for French aristocracy.
Should have saved more when they had the chance, shouldn’t they?
Fuck the elederly if they are going to fuck the young.
Why can’t they just sell one of their many houses that has gone up in value by at least 500% over the years?! Oh yes that’s it don’t want to give up the inheritance for the children would rather try and make everyone else suffer first
Literally every other generation in history has made sacrifices for the young except boomers. They are truly the worst.
Tory MPs should get limited oxygen to protect everyone else from them.
It’s not like The Telegraph has published this divisive ‘story’ to polarise and split the masses.
1. Fuck this old twat, he’ll be dead soon.
2. This tabloid has achieved what it wanted, ignore this tut.
TL:DR old rich cunt doesn’t like the prospect of someone taking his pocket money away and thinks everyone else’s kids and grandkids should have to suffer to save his wallet.
I especially love the “in 35 years time”, mate you’ll be dead and I’ll be you. I want the next generation to have something for themselves. Pay rises in line with inflation isn’t something that should be argued against. Don’t even pretend you’re speaking for me
Maybe the boomers should stop spending all their money on iPhones and avocado on toast and they will be able to ride out this period of inflation.
Shame the actual article is behind a paywall. Can’t trust actual headlines
inflation is already 15% and most of us won’t be getting a pay rise that high. so whilst everything will cost more we’ll be paid less.
Sorry, how do i cut the 1% i got. Bit confused.
Should i skip meals or?……..
He does have a point that inflation driven payrises will cause more inflation.
Tho at 77 he should have give his seat upto someone who makes the argument in a way that appeals to a younger demographic.
Man became and MP at 31 and has sat for 40 odd years. What the fuck would he know about pay and pay rises being related to labour shortages or increased productivity? Literally anyone can do his job and the time commitment seems minimal at best yet he trousers triple the average salary (plus or minus expenses I guess) who votes for these clowns!
Not all the elderly are wealthy, however the elderly are in a better position as a whole to withstand inflation. Younger people are going to be the ones really feeling the impact of inflation and will feel it for years to come the way things seem to be going. Brexit, climate change and another looming financial crisis are all going to make it so that young people are never as financially as comfortable as baby boomers have been, not that baby boomers wants to admit that either. We are already seeing limited to non-existent pay rises, especially in real-terms costs, so I don’t even know what rock this MP has been living under to get the impression we were getting huge raises every year.
Another out of touch Tory. When the archbishop of Canterbury said you can’t trust a Tory, he stopped short. He meant to add, because they’re all bastards.
This would be fine if we tax-payers looked to enjoy the benefits of a good pension in the future. Pay in what you will take out etc. But there’s no way I’m going to accept below inflation wages and even shitter pension contributions so they can carry on living it up on their final salaries.
There needs to be a balance, and raising NI has already penalised workers and protected pensioners.
Pay rises should happen, but they do themselves cause inflation. A better way imo would be to deflate assets like houses and reduce the cost of living.
Oh get lost.
Pensions are inflation linked, anyway.
Controlling inflation is good but wages following external commodity driven inflation is not going to fuel it anyway.
This year I received a 1.5% cost of living increase and lost an estimated third of my pension due to reforms.
This is not how you win the votes of the next generation.
Sir Peter Bottomley.
Married to ex minister Virginia Bottomley
Whose name is an anagram of
I’m am evil Tory bigot.
The millennial generation (but all workers over the last 30 years) have had a shocking run of once in a life time things….
Credit crunch
Brexit
Dealing with climate change
Knowledge that we will be worse off than our parents
Lower job security
Record costs across the board
Incoming automation
Record taxation levels
Rampant inflation
Oh and Covid 19
And now calls for reduced pay rises…
Protect the elderly? Mate their pensions are tied to inflation so they literally cannot lose.
Elderly people should be left to wander the Nevis range until death to reduce the tax burden on the young
How about corporations just take slightly lower profit margins instead?