The latest Conservative campaign pledges in the words of pensions minister Laura Trott to make sure the state pension never crosses the income tax threshold - will this policy do that?

The income tax threshold changes over time. Currently you start paying tax on income over £12,500. The state pension is on track to rise beyond that, but by 2027 the proposed “new” threshold would ensure you don't pay income tax on your state pension.

However, it's important to point out this situation is the result of Conservative policies; this pledge just reverses a change brought in by the Tories when George Osborne scrapped the “old” higher tax threshold for pensioners in 2016, previously introduced by the Labour government.

Now according to the Treasury Secretary, again, by next year this is a tax cut of around £100 for eight million pensioners.

Don’t be surprised, but Laura Trott is telling porkies again and again!

Let's assume that there are over three million people receiving the new state pension and around nine million people on the old state pension, who receive considerably less.

Therefore, no one living on the old state pension alone will get anywhere near close to paying tax next year.

The immediate tax benefit only really applies to younger pensioners with additional income on top of their state pension - therefore poorer pensioners gain nothing.

Well, Laura Trott, you have not mentioned that under this pledge will cost £2.4 billion. Your boss, Rishi Sunak, and you are claiming that it will be funded by a clampdown on tax avoidance. What have you done about tax avoidance during the last 14 years you were in power? Nothing! You have not even collected money your government paid out to dodgy claimants during the covid pandemic.

However, Laura Trott, you went on to tell pensioners to choose the Conservatives - with a clear plan, taking bold action, to secure their future now.

We could argue £100 a year by the end of the next parliament is not exactly a life changing amounts of money. However, as Tesco’s supermarket would say "Every little help". But this is not Tesco’s!

Your statement ignores that such action is the colossal pension challenge facing whichever government is next elected.

You should know that the Pension spending exceeds the budget for Education, Home Office and Defence combined (if I am not mistaken £138bn is the pension burden) and it's only going to get more expensive and unaffordable, having in mind that in the coming years, the working age population shrinks and retirees continue to live longer. No solution is pleasant but increasing the pension age well beyond the current proposal of 67 has a feeling of inevitability.

Make no mistake, there will be some more short-term tweaks to pension policies on the campaign trail; the long-term fixes are probably far too politically toxic to get a mention in the run up to an election.

Laura Trott, I asked a few of your colleagues including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak whether they believe in all the crap coming out from their mouths.

Please forgive me, but I have to ask you as well: "Laura Trott, do you believe in all the crap which comes out from your mouth"?

https://www.gov.uk/state-pension/how-much-you-get

• The full basic State Pension is £169.50 per week.
• If you’re a man born on or after 6 April 1951 or a woman born on or after 6 April 1953, you’ll get the new State Pension instead. You get £221.20 a week (the full new State Pension).

Ps: See my previous blog about Laura Trott knowledge of economics - subject Inflation

https://www.mercator.direct/laura-trott-mp-you-should-seek-career-change