{"id":27997,"date":"2026-05-04T05:04:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/27997\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T05:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T05:04:29","slug":"state-pension-triple-lock-under-threat-if-uk-goes-to-war-with-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/27997\/","title":{"rendered":"State pension triple lock under threat if UK goes to war with Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The state pension triple lock<\/a> would need to be scrapped if Britain goes to war with Russia<\/a>, defence and Whitehall insiders believe.<\/p>\n

A wartime scenario would put massive demands on government funding for defence, pushing it far beyond the current spending target of 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.<\/p>\n

High-profile spending items such as the triple lock, net-zero policies and benefits would need to be scaled back, suspended or shelved in order to fund a massive mobilisation of extra troops, equipment and civilian defence if the UK was in direct conflict with the Putin regime, say sources.<\/p>\n

While the Government insists it is already ramping up defence spending as a deterrence against all-out war, there are fears in Whitehall that a conflict could be triggered by a miscalculation.<\/p>\n

There are currently no plans to scrap the triple lock and Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s Government has committed to keeping it for the rest of this Parliament.<\/p>\n

However in the event of the outbreak of war, public spending across the board would need to be looked at to bolster the UK\u2019s military response, sources said.<\/p>\n

Britain and other European Nato allies are already locked in a hybrid war, also known as a \u201csub-threshold environment\u201d, with Moscow, with Russian subs and shadow fleet vessels patrolling the waters and tracking undersea cables around the UK and daily attempts at cyber attacks linked to Putin\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

In response, the UK has stepped up its military and civilian defence planning<\/a>, including increasing spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by next year with an ambition to ramp up to 3.5 per cent by 2035, and upping the tempo of wargame exercises. <\/p>\n

The latest of these exercises took place last week between the military and defence industry.<\/p>\n

At the same time, a number of high-profile figures have called for the triple lock \u2013 which guarantees the state pension<\/a> will rise by whichever is higher out of inflation, 2.5 per cent or increases in earnings \u2013 to be scrapped because it is increasingly unaffordable.<\/p>\n

Last week, Sir Tony Blair\u2019s think-tank, the TBI, joined calls for the triple lock to be axed<\/a> and replaced by a new system for the state funding of retirement.<\/p>\n

The Office for Budget Responsibility last year forecast that the extra cost of the triple lock to state pension spending will be around \u00a315.5bn by 2030.<\/p>\n

But no main UK political party, except the Green Party of England and Wales, has made it official policy to axe the triple lock as it is seen as a politically toxic vote-loser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gen Sir Richard Barrons, one of the authors of last year\u2019s Strategic Defence Review<\/a>, said he agreed with the assessment that the government would need to make \u201cchoices\u201d in a wartime scenario, with the triple lock and wider welfare spending likely targets.<\/p>\n

Barrons said: \u201cThis is the central issue right now: spending more on defence now means cutting something else. The Government has elected not to pursue this.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say that improving deterrence, including national resilience, within three to five years requires a minimum of an extra \u00a310bn per annum to defence starting now, and likely an investment surge that includes \u00a350bn of private capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunding that has to come from elsewhere in the \u00a31.3trn of annual UK public spend, or from more (perhaps hypothecated) borrowing such as defence bonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not know whether the triple lock is seen as part of this, but the triple lock is seen by many as not only unaffordable but also inordinately favours the grey over the young.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bigger question is what parts of a generally burgeoning welfare offer may both be trimmed\/delivered more efficiently, not just the triple lock. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022, defence spending has risen \u00a316bn and welfare spending \u00a383bn, so we are looking at choices not lack of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

However former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb said if the UK went to war with Russia, inflation would soar even higher and decoupling the state pension from inflation would be even more punishing for pensioners.<\/p>\n

Webb, a partner at pensions consultants LCP, said: \u201cAs things stand, pensions in April 2027 will rise by the highest of wage inflation, price inflation or 2.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be surprising if the highest of these was inflation, not least given the Bank of England<\/a> assessment yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn which case, the only way you would save any money would be to pay pensioners less than inflation at a time when energy bills were soaring, in order to pay for missiles or something? <\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s also a question about the difference between capital and revenue spending on defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf, say, you simply need to buy more capital items (drones, etc) then this is one off, and it\u2019s hard to see you would finance this by cutting recurring spending like state pensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf, on the other hand, you thought you needed (say) a bigger Army every year then you might think about cutting some other item of regular spending, but these things take time to ramp up \u2013 you can\u2019t suddenly find lots of extra soldiers by next April.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m pretty sceptical about whether any of this will happen, and in particular whether the state pension could get squeezed when pensioners are being hit by cost of living pressures, perhaps more than other groups if we\u2019re talking about energy bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson said: \u201cOur commitment to the triple lock is worth \u00a3470 a year to those receiving the new state pension, and we have launched a Pensions Commission to look at what more is required to ensure the pensions system is strong, fair and sustainable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Government is delivering record investment into defence, with over \u00a3270bn in defence across this Parliament and the Strategic Defence Review sets out how we\u2019re moving to warfighting readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state pension triple lock would need to be scrapped if Britain goes to war with Russia, defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1815,1816,460,1121,1459,5,6,1374],"class_list":{"0":"post-27997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-defence","9":"tag-military","10":"tag-security","11":"tag-state-pension","12":"tag-triple-lock","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-welfare"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116514564491023265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}