Andy Burnham faces a voters' revolt if he ditches the pensions triple lock to fund his national care service. Campaigners warned that such a betrayal would result in the Prime Minister being “kicked out of office”.
Mr Burnham will use his highly anticipated big speech at the Labour Party conference on Tuesday to outline the broad direction of his social care plans. Senior Labour figures say the estimated £18.5billion-a-year scheme should be funded by scrapping the triple lock, while the PM has said “nothing is off the table”.
Campaigners call triple lock 'non-negotiable'
But campaigner Dennis Reed said the pension safeguard, which is forecast to cost £15.5billion a year by 2029, is “non-negotiable”.
“If Andy Burnham wants to keep his honeymoon going, he must make clear to his party that the triple lock is non-negotiable, both in this parliament and the next”, the director of Silver Voices warned. “If the next manifesto is not unequivocal on this, he will face a voter revolt and the prospect of being kicked out of office”.
Mr Reed said 30,000 older people in England died last year waiting for the social care support that could have extended their lives, and that further delay is a “death sentence” for many more. He added: “While we need to discuss the options for funding free social care, scrapping the Triple Lock is not one of them because it would raise minuscule amounts in the medium term.”
Age UK and Unite voice concerns
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said the guarantee – in which state pensions rise each year by the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5% – is an “essential weapon in the battle against pensioner poverty”.
“Knowing that you haven't really got enough money coming in and with no prospect of this fundamentally changing is miserable and frightening for older people, above all for those on their own, and it is a far more common experience than is often assumed,” she said. “Without the Triple Lock their situation would be even worse.”
Mr Burnham has also come under pressure from Unite boss Sharon Graham. She told the Daily Express: "We cannot have a situation where we're going to older people to say to them to pay for all of this.
"We have got the lowest amount that we spend on pensioners in terms of GDP in the G7, we're the joint-lowest. I find it abhorrent that we're the joint lowest. And for me, you don't have to keep robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Funding options and political reaction
Mr Burnham is expected to tell delegates at the conference in Liverpool that he will take on the difficult issues that have been ignored for too long by Westminster, including social care. He is expected to announce multiple policies and commitments that he says will bring “hope again to Britain”.
Earlier this week the Labour leader indicated he intends to fight the next election on a pledge to introduce an NHS-style social care system which everyone contributes to. This could be done through tax rises.
Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the prime minister, said the PM would "probably have to not do other things" to fund his plans, indicating scrapping the triple lock could be one of them. Lord Blunkett, a former work and pensions secretary, said that Mr Burnham should look to axe the triple lock quickly, potentially raising up to £22billion by 2030.
"The honest truth is that there is an extremely good intellectual case for ending the triple lock, but it needs to be done this side of an election," he said. One of Labour’s biggest donors, Dale Vince, said the triple lock is “unnecessary”.
“I think it's over the top, actually, to have three different measures of inflation for pensions, I think it would be enough to have one,” he said. “I think inflation would probably do it.”
But former cabinet minister Sir John Redwood cast doubt on the savings made by scrapping the triple lock. He said: “Why do so many think scrapping the triple lock saves big money?
“The Government Actuary to the National Insurance fund says scrapping it would save just £2billion by 2030-31 compared to earnings uprating. No way it could pay for free social care.”
Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said: “It is frankly outrageous that Tory and Labour MPs are calling for the triple lock to be scrapped when we’re wasting tens of billions of pounds on nonsense.
“Reform have chosen to keep the triple lock, paid for by cutting the benefits bill, ending foreign aid and stopping net zero subsidies. It’s only right that we have the backs of those who have worked hard their entire lives.”
Richard Fuller, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “Andy Burnham’s national care service means another tax raid for working people.”
Mr Burnham promised shortly before he entered 10 Downing Street in July that he would honour Labour's 2024 election manifesto commitment to keep the financial guarantee for the duration of the current parliament.
A YouGov poll in May found that 66% of those surveyed support keeping the triple lock, while 14% are opposed to its retention. Even among 18 to 34-year-olds, the pensioners' safety net was backed by 44%, with 21% against.
The Daily Express crusade Save Our Pension Triple Lock has long campaigned for ministers to keep the measure, which was introduced to protect pensioners from increases in the cost of living. Some 1.7million older people live in poverty, and another one million are close to the breadline, according to figures from the Department for Work and Pensions.
