Whats happening with the basic state pension?
Good news: the link between the basic state pension and earnings, scrapped by Margaret Thatcher, will be restored next April. The annual increase in the state pension will be protected by what the chancellor described as a “triple lock” the rise will be in line with earnings, prices (using the RPI index this year but the CPI next year) or a 2.5% increase, whichever is the greater. It will be set by reference to the official figures on September ahead of the following April. The current basic state pension for a single person is 97.65, which suggests that pensioners will see at least a 2.5% minimum increase to 100.09 next April, but probably rather more given that the RPI index is currently running at 5.1%. There were rumours that the winter fuel allowance might be for the chop. Is it safe? Before the election, Labour campaign literature had suggested the Tories would cut the universal winter fuel allowance for the over-60s, where they receive between 125 and 400. But the chancellor lef
