Andy Burnham is facing growing opposition to plans to weaken the state pension triple lock, with 30,000 people signing a campaign petition in just over a week as the Prime Minister seeks to redirect savings towards his proposed National Care Service.
The backlash threatens to turn a major element of Mr Burnham’s social care reforms into a flashpoint over pensioner incomes, intergenerational fairness and the Government’s approach to public spending.
Campaign group Silver Voices relaunched its petition after the Prime Minister announced that the triple lock would be changed after the next general election. Under the proposed system, the state pension would rise annually in line with inflation or by 2.5 per cent, whichever was higher, removing the existing guarantee that increases would also reflect average earnings growth.
The triple lock currently provides for the state pension to rise by whichever is highest of inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent.
Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, accused Mr Burnham of offering older people an inadequate exchange for changes to a policy designed to protect their incomes.
“Older people have seen through the ‘deal’ offered by Andy Burnham – ‘adjust the triple lock and I will give you free social care’,” he said.
Mr Reed claimed that social care reform was being used as a pretext to dismantle the triple lock, which he said senior Labour figures, including MP Torsten Bell, had long opposed.
“This pathetic ruse is being shown up by the thousands joining our standard,” he said, adding that the proposed adjustment would save £15 billion, which he described as money “pinched from pensioners’ pockets”.
He also questioned whether the promised care reforms would deliver the benefits implied by the Government, arguing that older people could face a lengthy wait for a system comparable to Scotland’s arrangements.
“It is a pig in the poke deal and Labour needs to rethink before they are overwhelmed by the electoral consequences,” he said.
The dispute exposes a difficult trade-off for the Government: protecting pensioners from rising living costs while finding funding for an increasingly expensive care system.
Supporters of reform argue that the triple lock’s long-term cost is difficult to sustain and that changing it could release substantial sums for public services. Opponents counter that pensioners depend on the guarantee to prevent their incomes falling behind prices and wages.
Addressing Labour’s conference, Mr Burnham defended the proposals, saying the savings would help establish the National Care Service.
“Some may not realise it, but older people with nothing more than the state pension, or only a little more, can find themselves paying care charges today from that small income,” he said. “Under my plan, this will no longer happen.”
The central question remains whether the promised protection from care charges will persuade pensioners to accept a weaker guarantee over their future incomes.
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