Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has said scrapping the state pension triple lock would be “morally wrong”. Her comments come as Labour leadership figures signal the policy could be reviewed to help pay for social care reforms.
Triple lock under scrutiny
The triple lock ensures that the state pension rises every April in line with the highest of inflation, wage growth or 2.5%. There have long been questions about its long-term affordability.
Andy Burnham is expected to use his Labour Party conference speech to signal that the triple lock could be axed in the future to pay for social care reforms.
Union leader's warning
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Graham said Labour should consider wealth taxes rather than “pick the pocket of pensioners”.
She said: “When we met with Andy this week, it certainly wasn’t mentioned. But I do think that it’s important that Labour make sure that working-class people know that they’re on their side, and this would be a direction of travel that would say the opposite to that.”
Asked whether the lock should be reformed to fund social care, the union boss said: “What I understood the National Care Service to be was a universal benefit: everybody paid in and everybody gets out, and that is what actually the principle of that is.
“Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year in order to pay for it to take away their security is wrong. I think it’s morally wrong.”
Government position
The Prime Minister said this weekend that his plans for social care reforms would be put forward to voters at the next general election. Labour previously committed to keeping the triple lock for this Parliament as part of its 2024 manifesto.
Labour’s deputy leader and Education Secretary Lucy Powell today said the party was “committed” to the triple lock, but would not say if Mr Burnham and Chancellor John Healey were considering ending the policy.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast about whether the triple lock would be included in Labour's next manifesto, she said “we don't write manifestos now, we're delivering the last manifesto”.
Ms Powell added: “We are talking about how we can deal with these big challenges that the country faces, and they are going to be paid for. Some people are already paying for social care, acutely and profoundly.”
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner suggested pensioners could be “willing” to give up the triple lock if they know their money was going towards social care.
Speaking on Sky News' Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she said: “If they can see that this is going to improve and and move it into a way that delivers, so you’ve got a retail offer of ‘that’s no longer fit for purpose, but we can either do something for the younger generation because of the intergenerational disparities, or something on social care or whatever’, I think they would they would be willing to have a conversation.”
