This time Burnham has promised a care system “free at the point of use” with “no care charges paid out of your basic state pension,” modelled on the National Health Service that has existed since 1948. It would be built “as soon as possible” after a general election and include flexibility for its users, including to stay at home for longer if they wished.
“We’re going to do it. We are going to do it,” he said. “A landmark policy as significant as the creation of the NHS itself, and utterly essential to securing its future.”
But the funding to do it is an instant political football. From April 2030 Burnham pledged to scrap the current basis of the “triple lock,” which guarantees that pensions rise by 2.5 percent, inflation or the rise in average earnings, whichever is highest.
Under Burnham’s reform the 2.5 percent and inflation links would remain, but the earnings link would be removed in its current form. Instead future rises in the state pension would not fall below an overall floor of 30 percent of average earnings.
No. 10 aides insisted that the triple lock had not been removed — but freely admit that the policy will mean the state pension rises more slowly than it would have otherwise done. Labour officials said the policy would save £15 billion a year by the end of the 2030s.
The Liberal Democrats and Reform UK both attacked Burnham’s policy on the triple lock almost immediately, though the criticism from the opposition Conservatives was more muted (the party said it was “falling apart under scrutiny” rather than opposing it outright).