State pensioners are set to be handed a £400 Triple Lock boost despite the cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month that the Winter Fuel Allowance would become means tested, which means that state pensioners will not collect the £300 Winter Fuel Payments automatically this winter and instead would need to be claiming a ‘qualifying benefit’ like Pension Credit.
Today, the BBC issued new Triple Lock calculations which show that the state pension is set to rise by £400 a year next year, taking it to about £12,000 per year for those eligible to collect the full state pension with the requisite National Insurance contribution records.
It would take the annual payments to just £570 under the threshold for Income Tax, meaning if a state pensioner earned £571 or more in the same year, they would pay tax on every £1 above that amount.
The Treasury’s internal working calculations, reportedly seen by the BBC, revealed the pension could be boosted as a result of April’s triple lock.
Changes would take the full state pension to around £12,000 in 2025/26, after the £900 increase in 2023.
Pre-2016 retirees who may be eligible for the secondary state pension could see a £300 per year increase.
Any decision on a pension increase will be made by Secretary of State Liz Kendall ahead of October’s budget and is expected to be officially announced next week.
Labour has already promised to maintain the Triple Lock during its term in Parliament.
The report comes amid backlash over the Government’s decision to ditch the winter fuel allowance for the majority of households.
Analysis released last week revealed only around half of people receiving the new state pension last year were getting the full weekly amount – and around 150,000 were on less than £100 per week.
Royal London said that 1,737,342 of 3,407,567 people receiving the new pension received the full weekly amount last year.
It made the calculations using Department for Work and Pensions data from spring 2023.
The full state pension for 2024/25 is £221.20 a week, up from £203.85 last year.
