“Raising the new state pension in line with the triple lock over this Parliament is set to increase it by over £2,000 a year, while 60,000 extra pension credit awards were made in the year to July compared with the previous 12 months.”

However Father of the House Tory Sir Edward Leigh said: “I am very grateful to the Minister to be in receipt of the triple lock, but it is not an effective way of tackling pensioner poverty and it is bankrupting the country. I am sorry not to be party political, but can we not have a consensus between the parties that we should phase out the triple lock, concentrate resources on pensioners in real poverty and have an agreement on dealing with benefits generally to get people back into work? We should work together.”

Mr Bell replied: “I am always keen to work together with the Father of the House. He mentions the triple lock, but we are doing far more things to tackle pensioner poverty. There were 900,000 pensioners eligible for pension credit under the Conservatives who were not claiming, and that is why we have brought forward the biggest take-up campaign ever seen.

“The marketing campaign this year will run from September to the end of the financial year, we are carrying out research on what works to encourage take-up of pension credit and we are stepping up data sharing across Departments, including between His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions.”

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) found earlier this year that, due to inflation and earnings volatility, the triple lock has cost around three times more than initial expectations.rent estimates.”

Uprating using the triple lock rather than earnings alone will have added £15.5 billion to the state pension bill annually by the end of the decade (2029-30), the budget watchdog estimated.

According to the Treasury’s Budget, the Government’s “commitment to the triple lock for the duration of this Parliament” will “support the incomes of over 12 million pensioners”.

In the budget in November the government said it intends to change the law to enable the payment of inflation increases on pre-97 pensions to PPF and Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) members. The government has said it will legislate to enable us to pay inflation increases – also known as indexation – up to 2.5 per cent on pre-97 compensation / assistance payments to PPF and FAS members.

This would apply to those members whose original schemes provided for indexation on pre-97 pensions. The move would broadly align pre-97 indexation rules with those already in place for post-97 pensions for PPF and FAS members.

Labour’s Gill Furniss asked: “More than a quarter of a million pensioners received compensation from the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance scheme, but those who accrued their income before 1997 have suffered a real-terms cut of 24% in the past five years alone. I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to provide indexation on these accruals, but many of those who will benefit are elderly and in ill health. Can the Minister confirm that he will implement this much-welcomed change as quickly as possible?”

Mr Bell replied: “I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. I, like her, have met and listened to lots of those affected by the lack of indexation on pre-1997 accruals within the PPF and the FAS. I can assure her that, assuming the Pension Schemes Bill receives Royal Assent, the uprating will take place at the next PPF uprating, which means January 2027 on cur