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Jeremy Hunt was accused of forgetting pensioners in his Budget, with tax cuts for workers but little to cheer for retirees.
Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said pensioners were “substantial net losers” from the announcement, while former employment minister Anne Widdecombe said it was “unbelievable” that the Government could forget the grey vote in an election year.
“They just decided to pretend we don’t exist,” she fumed.
In fact, pensioners have had a good 14 years under the Conservatives and Coalition. While the most recent Budget didn’t have much for them, plenty of others have.
The triple lock, which was introduced by George Osborne in 2010, has pushed the state pension up significantly faster than average earnings for workers, rising by 8.5pc this month for instance.
Services on which pensioners rely disproportionately heavily, such as the NHS, have received repeated large budget increases.
Rises to the income tax threshold in the early years of Tory and Lib Dem were also a boon.
Beyond government support, today’s pensioners have benefitted from a surge in property values once they were on the ladder, generous final salary pension schemes and improvements in both life expectancy and quality of life.
Today’s pensioners are, in Johnson’s words, a “lucky” generation.
Financially, it is not just the triple lock on state pension that has delivered for them. Occupational pensions were also better for many of today’s retirees, saving up generous final salary pots.
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