What is the State Pension triple lock, and what changes in April 2030?

How the triple lock works now

There are two State Pension schemes: the basic State Pension, the older one, and the new State Pension that replaced it. Each April, the basic State Pension and the full rate of the new State Pension rise by the highest of three measures.

• Inflation, measured by the rise in the consumer prices index (CPI).
• A minimum of 2.5%.
• Growth in average earnings.

Some parts of the older scheme are outside the triple lock. DWP’s analysis assumes they keep rising with inflation.

The government has said it will raise the State Pension by the triple lock for the rest of this parliament, and that the pension will reach a record high relative to earnings in that time.

What changes from April 2030

Two of the three measures stay. The third, growth in average earnings, is replaced by a link to the pension’s value relative to earnings.

• Inflation, measured by CPI, stays.
• The 2.5% minimum stays.
• Earnings growth gives way to the rise needed to bring the pension back to, or keep it at, its value relative to earnings.

DWP says the value to hold is the record high relative to earnings that the triple lock reaches this parliament. In any year the pension rises by at least inflation or the minimum, and by more only where that is needed to keep that value.

Over time the State Pension would rise in line with average earnings. Under the triple lock it has tended to grow faster than wages.

People already receiving a State Pension

DWP says people who already receive a State Pension keep the triple lock until April 2030. From then they move to the adjusted rule, which DWP says will still raise the pension every year and protect it against inflation.

The factsheet describes how the pension rises each year. It says nothing about reducing a pension already in payment.

Where the change stands

The change has been announced. It has not been legislated and it is not in force. DWP set it out in its State Pension uprating analysis and a factsheet, and no bill or regulations to make it had been published when this guide was written.

An announced plan can change, or be dropped, before it takes effect.

DWP’s analysis covers Great Britain. Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities says its social security pensions are generally kept in parity with Great Britain’s.

The Department also says it has no power to set different rates in its yearly up-rating order. Neither department has said how the change would apply there.

What DWP projects

DWP has published illustrative projections of the adjusted rule against the triple lock. It says they are not forecasts of policy, and that they grow less certain the further ahead they reach.

DWP also projects that fewer pensioners are in relative poverty after housing costs under the adjusted rule: around 14% in 2024 to 2025, and around 8% in 2049 to 2050.

What is not yet known

• The exact formula. DWP describes the earnings link in words, and has not said which earnings measure or which starting year sets the value to hold.
• The State Pension rates for the years ahead, which are set each year.
• How the change would apply in Northern Ireland.
• Whether the plan reaches April 2030 in its present form.

This guide explains a policy. It does not advise anyone on what to do about it. How a change to State Pension increases affects a particular person turns on their own circumstances, such as their age, National Insurance record and other income. MoneyHelper gives free, impartial guidance, and a regulated financial adviser, whose status can be checked on the FCA Register, can advise on your own case.

How Landfall handles it

Every year of the plan raises your State Pension by “State Pension uprating”, one percentage applied from the first year to the last. In today’s money the pension grows when that figure is above inflation and shrinks when it is below.

Landfall follows the rules that are law today, and its model changes only when a new rule is enacted. Until then, how the pension rises in your plan is an assumption you can set.