{"id":123781,"date":"2025-05-22T23:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T23:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/123781\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T23:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T23:30:10","slug":"bbc-qt-row-explodes-over-state-pension-triple-lock-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/123781\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC QT row explodes over state pension triple lock | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Question Time panellist has called for the triple lock to be scrapped amid a fiery debate about the Government\u2019s winter fuel payment<\/a> U-turn. Responding to an audience question about whether or not the Prime Minister needs a roadmap following his latest change in direction, Brexit<\/a> columnist Inaya Folarin Iman, agreed suggesting that the decision came following the local election results and the rise of Reform UK.<\/p>\n

Ms Iman said: \u201cThe problem is that there are bigger questions that we need to ask as a society when it comes to an ageing population. Whether that\u2019s the social care crisis or whether that\u2019s the question of the triple lock<\/a> on pensions. I am in my 20s and I speak to other people in their 20s who don\u2019t believe that they will get a state pension<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked by host Fiona Bruce about whether she would advocate getting rid of the triple lock<\/a>, the journalist replied: \u201cI think we need to have a national conversation,\u201d as other panelists could be heard saying \u201cyes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow guest Zanny Minton Beddoes went one step further.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI’ll go further and say that triple lock<\/a> should go. In an aging society, we cannot continue to maintain these promises to the older generation, leaving a huge burden on younger generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to have an honest discussion about that and I think the triple lock<\/a> should go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The triple lock<\/a> was introduced in 2012 and ensures that the state pension<\/a> goes up each year by the highest of three metrics: 2.5%, inflation, or earnings growth.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Nick Thomas-Symonds attempted to defend the government\u2019s decision to ease their stance on the winter fuel payment<\/a>, which was described by other panellists as a \u201ccar crash policy\u201d, whilst maintaining the government\u2019s support of the measure.<\/p>\n

The Paymaster General insisted that the government were forced to means test the once universal benefit as a result of the country\u2019s economic situation but claimed that recent growth statistics laid behind the decision to reverse the controversial measure, rather than Labour embarrassing local election performance.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI don\u2019t think that anyone thinks that it is a good use of public money to be paying the winter fuel payment<\/a> to millionaires, I think it is right to means test it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the local elections, the prime minister said that \u2018I get it\u2019 and that is why we will be increasing the number of pensioners who are entitled to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Question Time panellist has called for the triple lock to be scrapped amid a fiery debate about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[345,51,474,807,528,55028,3126,2499,48486,1786,1787,16,15,12340,22334],"class_list":{"0":"post-123781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-benefits","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-labour-party","13":"tag-means-test","14":"tag-pensioners","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-question-time","17":"tag-state-pension","18":"tag-triple-lock","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-welfare","22":"tag-winter-fuel-payment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114554092777784758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}