Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced a new 'free to use' National Care Service (NCS), which will be paid for by ending the triple lock. The financial triple lock, which automatically uprates state pensions each year by one of three metrics – 2.5%, wage growth or inflation, whichever is highest – will in future be modified to remove the link to earnings, turning it into an effective 'double lock'.
Triple lock changes from 2030
Labour will “adjust” the pensions triple lock from 2030, removing the link to average earnings to pay for social care reform, Andy Burnham has announced. The money freed up by the changes will help pay for the new National Care Service, the PM said. However, the triple lock will not be changed until 2030, after the next election, so state pensioners can still look forward to triple lock increases every year until then.
In turn, the new National Care Service will be “free at the point of use”, and impose no charges on the basic state pension, Andy Burnham has announced.
A landmark policy
Andy Burnham has said the new National Care Service “free at the point of use” will be “a landmark policy – as significant as the creation of the NHS itself”. The Prime Minister described his grandmother Kitty's engagement ring being “ripped from her finger and stolen in a care home – care not worthy of the name”.
He apologised to care workers, saying: “I watched closely the people who looked after my dad, caring for other people's parents on poverty pay but doing it with huge skill, humour and humanity, holding a threadbare system somehow together yet invisible to the political class of this country. I want to speak directly today to our care workers – you are not invisible to me. I see you, I thank you and I am sorry that my profession has let down yours for so long.”
Mr Burnham promised to set up “a person-centred, high-quality care service that starts in the home – a system in the best traditions of this party, where everyone contributes and everyone is covered, free at the point of use, and no care charges paid out of your basic state pension”.
Pensioners protected and water nationalisation
Andy Burnham added a National Care Service would be “a landmark policy, as significant as the creation of the NHS itself and utterly essential to securing its future”. The Prime Minister said it could secure “NHS savings from fewer ambulance call-outs, A&E admissions and vulnerable people being stuck unnecessarily in hospital”. He continued: “We will start laying the ground now for the National Care Service and introduce it in the next Parliament.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Mr Burnham backed promises made by former Chancellor Rachel Reeves and pledged that low-income pensioners will not be “dragged into paying income tax in this Parliament”. It means that even when the triple lock boost does kick in, state pensioners who would have been pushed into the threshold for paying Income Tax on their state pension payments will avoid losing any of their DWP state pension payments to tax, as long as they have no other income.
In his speech, Mr Burnham also said the Government will end the ban on public ownership of water companies, paving the way for the nationalisation of firms that do not “serve the public interest”, he told the Labour Party conference.
