Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Tuesday 9th December 2025

The State Pension is the foundation of support for pensioners. The Government is committed to a fair tax system but doubling the Personal Allowance for pensioners would be untargeted and costly.

The State Pension is the foundation of support available to pensioners. The government is committed to the Triple Lock – one of the most generous State Pension uprating mechanisms in the world – for the duration of this Parliament. This will increase the basic and new State Pension by 4.8% next April, boosting pensioner incomes by up to £575 a year and strengthening retirement security.

The Personal Allowance is already the highest amongst G7 countries. Doubling this allowance for all pensioners would be costly and untargeted – disproportionately benefitting higher income pensioners.

As announced at the Budget, the government will ease the administrative burden for pensioners whose sole income is the basic or new State Pension without any increments so that they do not have to pay small amounts of tax via Simple Assessment from 2027-28, if the new or basic State Pension exceeds the Personal Allowance from that point. The government is exploring the best way to achieve this and will set out more detail next year.

HM Treasury

Parliamentary Debate

This petition has reached the threshold for a Parliamentary debate, but the debate has not yet been scheduled.