Statistician Andrew Dilnot says that putting social care on the same footing as health care would cost ‘well in excess of £18bn’
There is increasing speculation that Andy Burnham might announce plans to scrap the pensions triple lock as one means of funding his social care reforms. Yesterday Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the PM under Keir Starmer, told the BBC that this was “an option the government should consider alongside others”. According to reports in the Daily Telegraph and in the i, other Labour figures are also privately arguing this would be a good idea. One “insider” told the i that getting rid of the triple lock but making social care free could be sold as “taking [something] away when you’re in your 60s but giving it back when you’re 80”.
But Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, and a former Treasury official, told the Today programme this morning that getting rid of the triple lock would not raise enough to fund the sort of proposal Burnham has in mind any time soon.
The triple lock is a policy that has the value of pensions growing by more than earnings. That’s particularly unsustainable. But obviously taking it away would hurt the very generation who would benefit from free social care.
I don’t think one would be enough to pay for the other. For example, in this forecast period, we think cancelling the triple lock would save about £800m, maybe a bit less.
The post Warning Burnham’s social care plan could cost far more than he says, and take ‘decades’ to implement – UK politics live appeared first on World news | The Guardian.
