One in three people think that the state pension should be means-tested, according to The Times’s landmark wealth survey.

We questioned more than 4,000 taxpayers and found that one in five also agreed with scrapping the triple lock, but only 9 per cent said they supported increasing the state pension age to 70.

The state pension has been a hot topic among political parties, with the Reform UK leader Nigel Faragerefusing to guarantee that his party would keep the triple lock, which guarantees that the state pension rises every year in line with wages, inflation, or by 2.5 per cent — whichever is highest.

The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had suggested her party may water it down in January, but has since distanced herself from the comments.

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The Times Wealth Survey results suggest that 68 per cent of Reform voters would be against scrapping the triple lock, while 71 per cent of Tory voters said they opposed means-testing the state pension.

Gordon Steele, 68, a former consultant from Glasgow, believes that those who have paid into the system while working should be entitled to the state pension.

He said: “It’s your money — you should get back what you paid in. But for pensioners who have huge incomes and who can easily afford to go without it, who the state pension is nothing to, they should have the morals to say they will pay a little bit higher tax.”

Steele’s retirement income is drawn from several defined contribution pension pots, annuities and the state pension. He said: “I had to retire due to my health when I was 60, and I am worse off year on year.”

Britain’s increasing life expectancy means that the triple lock will cost three times what was initially forecast when it was introduced in 2011. By 2029 it will cost £15.5 billion more a year than if the staste pension had increased in line with earnings alone, according to the spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

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Respondents to the Times Wealth Survey were evenly split on whether there would still be a state pension by the time they retired, with 39 per cent voting yes and no. Those under the age of 50 were most convinced that it would not be around in their later life.

Becky O’Connor from the savings consolidation firm PensionBee said: “Introducing means-testing risks adding complexity and confusion. It could also potentially deter people from saving, particularly those unsure about whether they would qualify in later life. The challenge is to ensure that the state pension remains sustainable without undermining trust in the system.”

Heidi Karjalainen from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, said it was unlikely to work in Britain because of the voluntary nature of personal pension contributions.

She said: “In countries like Australia, means-testing works because making private pension contributions is mandatory, which ensures that savers still build up adequate retirement income. The UK’s voluntary system would make means-testing far harder to implement effectively.”

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The take-up of means-tested pensioner benefits is low. Less than two thirds of eligible households claim pension credit, either because they aren’t aware that they are entitled to it or don’t understand the process.

High earners don’t want means-testing

Higher-rate taxpayers were the most likely to be against any means-testing of the state pension. Almost three quarters of those with a household income of £150,000 to £199,999 a year said that they would oppose it.

But of those with a household income of between £40,000 and £45,000, some 54 per cent were against means-testing.

Those with higher cash savings were also more likely to support a means-testing of the state pension. Just one in ten of those who had saved between half a million and a million pounds supported the idea, but this rose to 27 per cent among savers who had more than £1 million stashed away.