Kemi Badenoch has vowed to keep the pension triple lock, warning that Labour are “going after the elderly”. The Conservative leader ended speculation that she could follow Andy Burnham in abandoning the guarantee that protects the value of the basic state pension.
Speaking as the Conservative conference kicked off in Birmingham on Sunday, Mrs Badenoch said the triple lock remains her party’s policy and “nothing that has happened has made me change my mind.” Her remarks come as a boost to the Daily Express crusade to protect the triple lock from being scrapped.
Conservatives promise to keep policy 'in perpetuity'
Asked if the Conservatives would keep the policy “no ifs, no buts” and “in perpetuity”, she told the BBC: “That is what we have promised. There is nothing that has happened that has made me change my mind.”
It opens up a dividing line between the Tories and Labour, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have said they are “totally committed” to keeping the triple lock. The party’s deputy leader Richard Tice said: “We're the ones that are absolutely committed to the triple lock. The Tories are sort of semi-sitting on the fence on that.”
Petition and warnings over living standards
Campaign group Silver Voices’ petition “Guarantee the future of the Triple Lock! Listen to us Andy Burnham!” has almost 300,000 signatures. Director Dennis Reed likened the government’s decision to Sir Keir Starmer’s “winter fuel fiasco”.
He said: “With the cost-of-living crisis spiralling out of control, millions of older people will be worrying about how they are going to heat their homes and feed themselves this winter. We need these further threats to our living standards like a hole in the head.”
New analysis suggested Andy Burnham’s pledge to effectively replace the mechanism with a double-lock could cost some workers up to £38,000 in retirement.
Labour's plans and potential savings
The Prime Minister revealed last week that Labour will scrap the existing system, which means the state pension will match the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% – whichever is highest, in 2030. Under Mr Burnham’s plans it will be adjusted to rise by inflation or 2.5%.
Legislation to ditch the triple lock could come as soon as next year, despite Labour’s manifesto commitment to keep it in place for the rest of this parliament. Mr Burnham said the move could help pay for his plan to create an NHS-style National Care Service for social care.
Official estimates suggest it could save £15 billion a year by 2040 – money that would otherwise have gone to pensioners. Mrs Badenoch said the Prime Minister had yet to show how modest savings in the early years of the next decade could fund a new social care system he has said he wants to get underway in 2030.
Some senior Tories, including former chancellor Sir Jeremy Hunt, shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat and shadow communities secretary Katie Lam, have questioned the long-term sustainability of the triple lock.
But Mrs Badenoch said the focus for welfare reform should be getting more people into work. “What is going wrong in our economy is not lots of elderly people earning £10,000, £12,000 a year on the state pension, it is the huge number of people who can work who don’t work,” she said.
“The fact is, the triple lock and pensions are things that people have contributed to. Conservatives believe that if you have contributed then you deserve to get your state pension. What we don’t want to see is people going after the elderly, chasing after vulnerable and disabled people and then an extremely large cohort of people who can work who are not working are left alone.”
Bridget Phillipson, Chair of the Labour Party, said: "Before Kemi Badenoch's conference has even started she's failing to deal with Tory splits on the triple lock and secret plans for billions of pounds of cuts to public services. They reveal a Tory Party that is stuck in the past and remains completely out of touch with what people across Britain want to see."
"Last week Andy Burnham set out a plan to bring back hope to Britain. Kemi Badenoch wants to drag our country back to a politics that has let so many people down over the past 40 years."
"While the Tories reach for desperate and misleading tactics to try to distract from the fact Badenoch's top team oppose her on key issues, Andy Burnham will carry on taking on the complex problems politicians have ignored for far too long."
It came as analysis by the Sunday Times revealed that younger workers will be the worst hit by Labour’s move away from the existing triple lock. The report suggested that Generation X workers born between 1965 and 1980 would be worse off than they would have been by an average of £16,800 to £23,170 over the course of a 20-year retirement. Millennials born between 1981 and 1996 would suffer an average hit of £28,140, while those in Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012 would be worse off by £38,400.
