At conference this weekend, there was a rare – and welcome – moment of controversy in the hall.

During Ed Davey’s Q&A, journalist Carolyn Quinn asked for a show of hands.  Should the Liberal Democrats continue supporting the triple lock pension?

It was close.  The triple lock survived the straw poll, but only narrowly.

For a party which proudly introduced the triple lock, that tells us something.  There is an appetite among Liberal Democrats for a serious conversation about intergenerational fairness.

We should have it.

The triple lock was the right policy for its time. When Liberal Democrats entered government in 2010, too many pensioners had seen the value of the state pension eroded over decades.  Linking annual increases to whichever was highest – earnings, inflation or 2.5% – was rooted in a liberal instinct.  Giving people dignity and security in retirement.

It worked.

The question is whether a mechanism designed for Britain in 2010 should continue indefinitely, irrespective of how Britain changes.

Today the state spends around £154 billion a year on the state pension.  The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that this is now £16 billion higher annually than it would have been without the triple lock.  Looking towards 2050, it estimates the additional annual cost of maintaining the lock could plausibly be as high as £40 billion.

That is not an argument for impoverishing pensioners.  Nor should we succumb to lazy generational warfare which portrays pensioners as universally wealthy. It is an argument for asking where state support can best deliver fairness in Britain today. I believe the answer is children and families.

The triple lock has achieved something important.  It has deliberately increased the state pension faster than earnings over time.  But no equivalent promise exists to families bringing up the generation which will ultimately finance tomorrow’s pensions, NHS and social care system.  That needs to change.

Liberal Democrats should propose replacing the triple lock with a more sustainable guarantee.  Maintaining the state pension’s value against earnings over the long term, while protecting pensioners against periods of high inflation.  Pensioners would retain the security of knowing their living standards would not be allowed to collapse.  What would disappear is the ratchet under which the pension can repeatedly rise faster than both prices and wages. And we should make an equally clear promise about where the savings go.

First, universal free school meals for every primary school child.

We introduced universal infant free school meals in government and our 2024 manifesto set an ambition of extending free meals to every primary-age child when the public finances allowed. Well, let us create the fiscal room to allow it.

Universal provision is liberalism at its practical best. It gives every child a decent meal, removes stigma, saves working families money and gives children a better chance of arriving in the classroom ready to learn.

Second, we should create an Early Year’s Premium through Child Benefit.

For example, an additional £10 per child per week for children under five would put £520 a year directly into family budgets during some of the most expensive years of raising a child.

There is a wider economic purpose here too. Britain should be a country in which people who want children feel financially able to have them.  Housing, childcare and everyday living costs increasingly make starting a family feel like an economic penalty.  Government cannot — and certainly should not — tell people how many children to have.  But it can stop making starting a family unnecessarily difficult.

Alongside our existing commitments to deliver better childcare and improved parental leave, an Early Year’s Premium could form part of a recognisable Liberal Democrat offer: Britain should be the best country in which to start and raise a family.

None of this means abandoning pensioners.  Indeed, reforming the triple lock now may be the best way of creating a state pension settlement which younger workers can genuinely believe will still exist when they retire. The triple lock was introduced to correct an intergenerational injustice.  We should be proud that Liberal Democrats did that.  But liberalism cannot mean permanently preserving yesterday’s solution after the problem has changed.

Government is about choices.  In 2010, one of the great social challenges facing Britain was pensioner insecurity.  Today we face another.  A generation struggling with the costs of housing, childcare and raising children, while child poverty continues to scar life chances from birth.

The liberal instinct should remain exactly the same. Protect people who need security.  Give every child the best possible start in life.  And spend public money where it creates the greatest freedom and opportunity.

The triple lock did its job.  Now it is time to offer the same security to the next generation.

* Shaun Ennis is the Leader of Trafford Liberal Democrats and a councillor in Timperley Central