EXCLUSIVE: The PM blasted for targeting ‘low-hanging fruit’ as Labour stands accused of short-changing pensioners.
Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan has taken aim at the PM’s state pension plans (Image: PA)
Andy Burnham’s dogmatic decision to axe the State Pension Triple Lock could be as disastrous as Labour’s move to scrap winter fuel payments, one of his own MPs said. The Prime Minister sparked anger after announcing he will stop the mechanism in its current form, partly to fund a national care service. But he now risks a backbench rebellion over plans that mean OAPs will be offered less generous terms at a time when the cost of living is rocketing.
Neil Duncan-Jordan said Labour’s Triple Lock gamble could be as “politically unpopular as Starmer’s winter fuel debacle” in what amounts to the first major red-on-red attack that has the potential to spark a full-scale revolt.
The outspoken backbencher, who was disciplined for leading criticism of proposals to means-test annual cold-weather payments, questioned how it could be justified. OAPs are forced to survive on less than £13,000 a year after a lifetime of hard graft.
He said: “Commentators across the political class often reach for what they think is such low-hanging fruit and decry the Triple Lock as some unnecessary, extravagant expenditure that simply props up wealthy pensioners who spend all their time on lavish cruises. The reality is somewhat different. The UK still has 1.9 million older people living in poverty.”
His incendiary comments will deeply embarrass the PM and embolden Kemi Badenoch at the start of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where she vowed to protect the Triple Lock.
Currently, the State Pension increases each April by the highest of inflation, 2.5% or average earnings. Under Mr Burnham’s plans from 2030, it will rise either in line with prices, or 2.5% each year, whichever is higher – but not in line with earnings unless its value has fallen behind. In that case, it will be adjusted to keep pace.
The PM’s decision to axe the triple lock could be as disastrous as the Winter Fuel Payment fiasco. (Image: Andrew Stenning)
Labour called the policy on which it will fight the next General Election an “adjusted Triple Lock”, but critics claim it is proof the party sees pensioners, which collectively make up one fifth of the electorate, as politically expendable.
But there are suggestions that it could be implemented sooner, with a vote to scrap it during this Parliament. Mrs Badenoch pledged to save the Triple Lock and attacked the PM for “going after the elderly”.
She told the Express, keeping the income guarantee “is what we have promised”, adding: “There is nothing that has happened that has made me change my mind.”
The Tories claim Labour is “cutting pensions for millions of people rather than cutting benefits” and has launched a petition demanding the PM “cuts welfare, not the Triple Lock”.
A spokesman said: “Pensioners built this country. They worked hard, paid in and did the right thing. They live on fixed incomes. Most cannot work. That is why the Conservatives invented the Triple Lock. Because we recognise contribution.
“Any serious plan to reduce Government spending must start with working-age welfare, not with taking money from people who have already earned what they get. Andy Burnham needs to cut welfare and get Britain working again. Not punish those who spent a lifetime contributing.”
The Triple Lock was introduced in 2011 by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition Government to address rising pensioner poverty caused by linking state pensions only to prices.
In 1979, the State Pension was worth 26% of average earnings, but the link with wages was cut in 1980, and before the triple lock, it had plunged to 16% of average earnings.
The mechanism reversed the fall and the full new State Pension – £241.30 a week or £12,547.60 a year – is equal to roughly 30% of median full-time pay.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, Labour’s largest union backer, said removing the pension triple lock would penalise the “poorest in society”.
She said: “Going to a group of people who are getting around £12,500 a year, in order to pay for it, to take their security from them, is wrong. I think it’s morally wrong.
“We need to look at other ways. And I can’t understand why we keep going to the well of the poorest in society as a Labour Government. Why are we doing that instead of taxing the rich in our society?”
Badenoch: Andy Burnham is wrong to target the triple lock
Badenoch: Andy Burnham is wrong to target the triple lock
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Former Pensions Minister Baroness Ros Altmann said: “The Triple Lock was introduced because the UK’s basic State Pension had fallen so far behind the rest of the economy, and pensioners were often in poverty. And the reason this happened was that, for many years, the State Pension only increased in line with prices and not earnings.
“It has helped restore the value of state pensions, lifting more pensioners above the poverty line. However, there are still millions of older people living on very little and struggling to make ends meet.
“Our basic State Pension is one of the lowest in the developed world. By suggesting he wants to only raise state pensions by CPI or 2.5%, older citizens who are living just on the State Pension will understandably fear going back to the bad old days, which the Triple Lock has helped move away from.”
In one of its first acts after winning the 2024 General Election, Labour axed the Winter Fuel Payment and said only those in receipt of Pension Credit would get it. It meant that instead of cash being automatically paid to 10.8million pensioners in England and Wales the number of recipients was slashed to 1.5million.
Despite an outcry the annual lump sum, introduced by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and given to all pensioners since 1997, was scrapped with only those passing a humiliating means-test able to qualify.
The move sparked national outrage – led by Mr Duncan-Jordan – but it was only after pressure from the Express that former Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced into a U-turn.
The tax-free Government grant of £200 per household, or £300 per household where there is someone over 80, is now made automatically to around 9 million OAPs.
Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said: “Pensioner poverty has not been vanquished and the last few years show how insidiously it can creep back if governments look away. Protecting those older people who are vulnerable, or on the lowest incomes, should be the ultimate test of this Government’s reforms – it can’t be social care or financial security, in a civilised society it must be both.”
Mr Duncan-Jordan said: “I want the Burnham Government to succeed, and the Triple Lock proposal could be as politically unpopular as Starmer’s winter fuel debacle. That’s why I’m urging the PM to think again. Let’s fund a better care system by asking all of us to pay for it – not just pensioners.”
* How will you be affected by Labour’s State Pension proposals? Email giles.sheldrick@reachplc.com
Are we really saying a state pension of less than £13,000 is too generous for a lifetime of paying National Insurance?
Andy Burnham was absolutely right to say he would fix our broken social care system, but he was wrong to argue that this should be funded by scrapping the state pension triple lock.
Commentators across the political class often reach for what they think is such low-hanging fruit and decry the triple lock as some unnecessary, extravagant expenditure that simply props up wealthy pensioners who spend all their time on lavish cruises. The reality is somewhat different.
The UK still has 1.9 million older people living in poverty. Means-testing doesn’t work because for decades, hundreds of thousands of pensioners eligible for pension credit have never received it, and millions more have incomes just above the poverty level.
Far from being job done, the triple lock is still a work in progress to address decades of struggle in retirement.
The public often doesn’t realise that we have two state pensions – the old and the new.
Anyone who retired after April 2016 is on the new pension, which increases with the triple lock every year.
But the majority of pensioners are not on this pension. That’s because they continue to receive an old basic state pension and a second state pension.
What people don’t realise is that the second state pension doesn’t go up with the triple lock, and as a result, the gap between the old and the new state pension is widening.
That’s why many older people don’t get anywhere near the level of pension income that is often trotted out. And let’s be honest – whichever state pension you receive, it still remains so low that it doesn’t reach the tax threshold.
Are we really saying that a state pension of less than £13,000 is too generous for a lifetime of paying National Insurance?
What’s more is that future generations are going to rely on the state pension even more than their parents and grandparents do.
We know that the high-water mark of good, final salary occupational pensions is long gone.
Auto-enrolled pensions do not provide anything close to a decent income in retirement because the contributions are so low.
Inevitably, a cut to the triple lock would need to be reversed when the number of older people in poverty begins to rise.
But most of all I want the Burnham Government to succeed, and the triple lock proposal could be as politically unpopular as Starmer’s winter fuel debacle.
That’s why I’m urging the PM to think again. Let’s fund a better care system by asking all of us to pay for it – not just pensioners.
Neil Duncan-Jordan is Labour MP for Poole