The state pension age may have to rise to 68 sooner than 2044 to pay for the triple lock, former Tory ministers have warned.
Lord Willetts, a former Tory MP, told i the “precedent and evidence so far” indicates that the triple lock makes faster increases in the pension age more likely.
He said the Government has already planned for a rise to 67 within the next Parliament but “it is possible that the further increase could be sped up”.
It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the triple lock would remain in place throughout the next Parliament if the Conservative Party wins the forthcoming general election.
Economists have previously warned this could cost as much as £49bn.
This ensures the state pension rises by the highest rate of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5 per cent each year, and has led to bumper payouts to retirees.
People aged 47 to 48 expecting to retire in 2044 at the age of 68 may have to wait longer for their pension as a result of these potential changes.
The Government plans to raise the pension age from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028 and has scheduled a further review within two years of the next Parliament to consider recommendations for an earlier rise to age 68, which it is currently scheduled to reach between 2044 to 2046.
When asked about the prospect of bringing the age rise forward senior Conservative sources said the government has no plans to increase the state pension age in the coming years, but refused to rule out the prospect of raising it at some point in the future.
An independent review of the state pension age by Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, published last March, recommended an increase to 68 between 2041 and 2043, adding state pension spending should be capped at 6 per cent of gross domestic product, which would mean a further increase to 69 between 2046 and 2048.
Lord Willetts, now a Tory peer and president of the Resolution Foundation think-tank, said the triple lock, initially implemented by the 2010 coalition government, was “funded by the speeding up of the pension age” which affected so-called “Waspi” women.
He said the triple lock pledge had been made earlier than the changes to the state pension age, but “then there was a question of how to pay for it” because the Government recognised it was “expensive”.
Lord Willetts, who was a minister of state in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2014, said: “The argument was, if we speed up the increase in the pension age, there will be fewer pensioners, and we’ll be able to pay them a higher pension.
“That was the trade-off on which the triple lock rested when it was first introduced, and it is a reminder that somehow or other these pledges have to be paid for, even with unpalatable measures like that which have come back and proved to be very controversial.”
He said “the precedent from the Waspi women is relevant” to the current situation in which the triple lock is becoming a costly promise.
David Gauke, a former work and pensions secretary who was in the Treasury in the early 2010s, added the decision to raise the state pension age had been taken to put the pension system “on a sustainable footing”.
He told i: “The triple lock proved to be more expensive in practice than was anticipated when the policy was first announced, just because of the way in which the economy operated after 2010. It did more to increase the value of the state pension than anyone had thought was likely.
“Ultimately, governments are going to have to take into account the wider fiscal situation. If you prioritise the increase in the state pension, then one way you can address that is by looking at the age in which it comes into play.”
Under the 2011 Pensions Act, the increase in the state pension age was accelerated so that it reached 65 by November 2018 instead of April 2020. The qualifying age for both men and women was set to reach 66 in October 2020.
Gauke said committing to the triple lock over the next Parliament “wouldn’t have been a priority” for him if he were in Government, adding: “Given all the choices that have to be made, and this has been in the era in which tough choices have to be made on the public finances, it is quite striking the way in which the generosity of the state pension has increased so much in the last 14 years.
“In the context of what’s happened elsewhere, that’s not really justified.”
Carl Emmerson, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, warned that committing to the triple lock could make it more likely that the state pension age will keep rising.
He said: “Clearly one issue with the triple lock is if we do generous indexation and then we don’t like the cost, and we respond to that by pushing up the state pension age even more.”
Labour have also committed to the triple lock, but have not officially pledged it would be in their manifesto.
High inflation over the past two years has seen the state pension rise by 10.1 per cent and 8.5 per cent, raising concerns over its cost – estimated at around an extra £11bn a year – and fairness – and leading to some economists to call for the mechanism to be changed.