Reform UK and Tories attack Burnham’s triple lock pension move
Reform UK and Tory leaders have hit out at Andy Burnham’s plans to drop the triple lock on pensions in a future Labour manifesto, setting up a clash on a policy which previously had the backing of all major political parties.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister said he would lead his party on a pledge to reform the triple lock pension in order to fund a new National Care Service at the next election.
Under a new mechanism, the state pension would rise by whichever is highest out of inflation or 2.5 per cent. The new system would ensure that the increase in the state pension did not outpace wage growth over the long term while government analysis suggests it could save £15bn a year by 2040.
Several economists, including analysts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, backed Burnham’s pledge to change the triple lock as the current system was “unpredictable” and “unsustainable”.
Triple lock reform ‘just mean’
The manifesto commitment for the next election could put Labour’s support at risk given widespread support among older voters for the triple lock.
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman who made a commitment to the triple lock central to his economic policy agenda, said the pledge was “just mean”.
The party argued that he would still need more funds to back up investments in social care.
Reform’s party leader Nigel Farage said Burnham would “abdicate his responsibility to British pensioners”.
“If he is so desperate to pick a fight with pensioners, he should get on with it, call a general election now, and let the public decide,” Farage said.
The new Labour policy could be particularly awkward for Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives which have pledged to make more than £20bn in welfare savings.
Badenoch said his proposal was “falling apart under scrutiny” and would not provide enough funds for a care system, adding “which means more tax rises are inevitable”.
More widely, she attacked Burnham over his promise to expand state control over utilities and criticism of the last 40 years of policymaking.
“Burnham wants to take Britain back to the 1970s, a time of more government control, more trade union control and no economic growth,” Badenoch said.
“There is a reason our country took a different course after that decade.”
City economists said aspects of Burnham’s speech were “encouraging” although he “focused on outcomes rather than means”, according to Andrew Wishart of Berenberg.
Wishart said the triple lock change was a “minor adjustment” that would “restrain spending on state pensions a little in the long run, but surely not by enough to fund a new Social Care Service, free at the point of use like the NHS”.
Wishart went on: “The Prime Minister implicitly acknowledged that this can’t be achieved while meeting the 2024 Labour manifesto promises not to raise personal tax rates. Arguing for an increase in one of the main taxes to fund it will wait until closer to the next election.”