NATIONAL SCANDAL
Silver Voices is the only independent, individual membership organisation for senior citizens in the UK. The group’s latest news, highlighted below, shows that our UK politicians are increasingly failing elderly people.
TRIPLE LOCK INCREASES CONFIRMED BUT DANGERS LURK
The calculations for the Triple Lock increases to the state pensions from next April are now clear. The earnings figure of 4.8% will be taken, because this year it is higher than either inflation (3.8%) or the 2.5% safety net. The Government will formally endorse these figures in the November Budget (there is no indication that they will not do so). Following Government approval, the new figures from April 2026 should therefore be:
New state pension top rate: £241.30 per week (£12,547.60 pa)
Old state pension top rate: £184.90 per week (£9614.80 pa)
The continuing failure of politicians to recognise the unfair and growing gap between the pensions of the large majority of older people who retired before April 2016, and more recent retirees, is leading to an unsustainable divide (the income gap is now a huge £56 per week). The old state pension is now only three quarters of the new state pension and Silver Voices will continue to campaign to get this scandal addressed.
The top new state pension rate is now only £22 below the frozen lower tax threshold of £12570, which gives added weight to our priority campaign for the Budget to stop the state pension from being taxed by unfreezing the personal allowance for pensioners.
We should also remember the plight of about half a million older people who retired abroad, after paying their national insurance throughout their working lives, who have had their state pensions frozen because the Government has failed to conclude reciprocal agreements with the countries concerned. These triple lock increases will not apply to them, compounding the unfairness. Another glaring anomaly which must be resolved.
Savage Policy Exchange Agenda Condemned by Silver Voices
We cannot rest on our laurels in retaining the Triple Lock up to now as very powerful forces are developing an explicit anti-pensioner agenda. A report by the Policy Exchange think tank was published last week, laying this agenda bare. This organisation is an extreme free-market group which refuses to disclose its sources of funding, but is reportedly backed by global corporations. It does not believe in public services or benefits at all, but is influential in Whitehall thinking. Their Report ‘Beyond Our Means’ calls for an immediate £115 billion cut in public spending, including:
Scrapping the Triple Lock and freezing the state pension for three years, then increasing it only on the basis of CPI (inflation)
Increasing the state pension age to 70 by 2040
Reverting to the original Government policy on scrapping the winter fuel payment
Scrapping the free bus pass (except for those on pension credit)
Means-testing free eye tests and free prescriptions
Charging a £20 fee for GP visits
This is not the end of Policy Exchange’s ambitions on behalf of global capitalism. They want to scrap the universal provision of state pensions completely, and they also call for all public services (including the NHS) to be increasingly funded through insurances and fixed payments. If you can stomach it, the full report is available on the following link:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/beyond-our-means/
The Silver Voices Director had an opinion piece in the Daily Express published, condemning this Report, which you can read on the following link. It is a pity that none of the main political parties or old age charities have done likewise.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2124303/triple-lock-attack-think-tanks
29 October 2025
