Is ending the triple lock to fund a care service fair....

[mids2019]

To me this is actually not a hugely left wing proposal as middle classes with occupational and private pensions will not notice the reduced increases in state pension significantly.

However poorer pensioners with little other pension provision may be impacted a lot to essentially fund a care service that will be disprotioanrly help the middle classes as their life expectancy is greater.

Is it fair that our poorest pensioners get less to support a care service which would mean a millionaire pensioner would not nèed to sell their assets to access it?

But he has to fix everything now, let’s ignore that the Tories didn’t manage to fix anything despite having years.

Plus he already fixed the cost of living crisis with the VAT on energy so he needs some credit. Hopefully with all that "breathing space" he's given people they will stop complaining about the cost of living for a few years.

Yes, he definitely did, maybe not in the speech (I only heard the bits on the news) but beforehand, several times.

That left hand figure appears not to include the employers portion of NI, which is huge, and relates only to a salary well under £50k.

It also takes no account of how much the person paying NI could have made out of the contributions if they had been allowed to invest them instead of paying someone else's state pension with it.

The news reported that it would only be for carers in the home that would be paid for, not residential care.

I think I’ll wait for clarification from the horse’s mouth rather than media speculation.

If all care homes were free, it would cost billions and billions of pounds and they would have to build loads of places. It can’t be the case.

It could be that the care element is free and charges are still made for the hotel services. After all you still have to pay for utilities and food if you’re at home.

And again, what of the NI contributions I’m paying? I won’t get a state pension if it stays like it is now

https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/55654-britons-support-changing-triple-lock-to-fund-care-service-by-48-to-28

Not a massive sample, but thought this was interesting. Maybe modifying the triple lock isn’t the political suicide it’s always been made out to be…

It puzzles me why you have such a complicated system in the UK. Here everyone is entitled to national superannuation when they turn 65, that's it. You could have never worked a day in your life and you still get the same as anyone else.

I would be a bit wary of polls about it at the moment, at least two of us, maybe more on this thread thought the care home was included

Yes, that’s a really good point - I was just genuinely surprised that so many on the poll seemed at all open to modifying the triple lock, it always get spoken about as though it’s untouchable

The service will not cover bed and board, for which existing means-tested council contributions will remain. Councils will continue to exclude the value of a home from financial assessments where a partner or dependent relative lives there, and deferred payment agreements will remain available to help eligible people avoid having to sell their home during their lifetime to meet care costs.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-andy-burnham-sets-out-plans-for-a-new-national-care-service

How is this markedly different from the situation at present?

Silver farms are big business ! Remeber that Gary Robinson program about care homes ! Owners turning up in bentlys but night staff couldnt even have a sandwich !!

It's a disgrace !

Also how many people who've seen a relative with dementia want that existance for themselves ? Don't know your family , vulnerable , needing personal care and don't know where you are and yet paying thousands a month for this giving your hard earned cash to people who cana afford dingitas !
Who chooses that for themselves !

Nobody chooses dementia (which is now the biggest cause of death in the UK) but some of us have reluctantly come to terms with it being likely to affect us. The care element being removed from residential care would reduce the cost and the focus on and scrutiny of care homes would quite possibly remove a number of profiteers from the industry entirely. It’s in everyone’s interests to have universal standards and a more regulated approach to the care system.

Sighs. It's not a suggestion nor is it a wishlist. It's reality. There's no magic money tree. So the options are:
A) We raise cash to fund the services we need. Savings where possible, tax rises / health insurance where not.
OR
B) We accept that healthcare and social care are expensive and tell people to pay for their own medical and social care. The economically privileged get the best of everything, everyone else gets scraps from the table.
OR
C) We prioritise certain groups until the public money runs out. There will be winners and losers. The chosen ones get medical and social care, everyone else gets to lick the bowl - or more likely takes the euthanasia option.

None of these are GOOD options, as a society we have to pick the least bad option. I would personally pick A but I'm just one person. What would YOU pick? We all know A is the sane and civilised option but any politician who spells this out is reviled. People would literally rather vote for grifters promising smoke and mirrors, hence my growing contempt for the British electorate. They'll wax sentimental about pensioners while stabbing them in the back, rather than pay a penny more in tax!

A system in the best traditions of this party, where everyone contributes and everyone is covered.
Free at the point of use and no care charges paid out of your basic state pension.

https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/andy-burnhams-speech-to-labour-party-conference-2026/

Free at the point of use Not FREE, just ‘free’ when you use it. You (or your estate) will have to pay back the cost (presumably with interest) later.

… no care charges paid out of your basic state pension. Board and lodging need to be paid for & the only protected part of your income is your basic state pension. All other income (savings interest, private pension, investments etc) will be used to pay the fees.

I assume (hope!) that the specific wording in the statement is a bit careless and not actually indicative of what is intended. The Basic State Pension is the name given to the state pension paid to those who retired before 6 April 2016. Those who retired after receive the New State Pension. The NSP is currently
£241.30 per week (£12,547.60 p.a.) whilst the BSP is only £184.90 per week (£9,614.80 p.a.).

Hopefully the speech really means that the whole amount of the state pension you receive is protected, not just an amount corresponding to the basic state pension - or, even worse - the only people whose pension will be excluded from care cost contribution calculations will be those on the old state pension system.

Assuming it’s the former and not the latter, I’m disappointed that the many £££ paid to Labour via union subs is seemingly not enough to allow the party to stretch to employing a proof reader.

I heard a man:

• Aligning himself with hardship and struggle by association.

• Promising to spend money without yet being particularly clear about whose pocket it will ultimately come from, whilst making little commitment to tackling waste and inefficiency before asking people for more.

• Managing expectations down about how quickly any of it will be delivered.

Wanting to tackle the issues he spoke to is admirable. The mechanisms to do so, I suspect, will be less so.

Many people are galvanised by free stuff, so I am not surprised you heard something different. I suspect you had already made your mind up.

There is no such thing as free when it comes to benefits and services. Someone is paying for them somewhere. I like to know who that is and how they are going to have to pay.

The emperor is naked. Happy to see the clothes when he puts them on.

If we didn't let all & sundry into the country, we'd have more money..

You realise we all didn’t vote the same way? There hasn’t been a dictatorship.

I expect it will go the same way as VAT for private schools.
Tax more and yet the money didn’t go where it was promised but disappeared into the general pot as the country is in so much debt.

I know how democracy works. I'm not sure you do though based on your post. If there was a dictatorship then nobody would be voting at all...

I agree with those saying to end the triple lock. Pensioners ‘win’ from the triple lock in a way working people don’t, They get the inflation increase the year CPI runs high. Wages typically lag a year or two behind as employers generally stick to their merit cycle. You then see the ripple effect of wages rising to catch up with inflation in the following year, but because of the triple lock, the state pension benefits again. This is on top of the fact that in many cases, people are living longer and drawing a state pension that far exceeds what they ever paid in (hence its classified as a benefit).
It’s unsustainable.

Those pensioners with truly nothing but the state pension receive pension credit and support from councils towards their care.

The answer for future generations is to look to the Australian Superannuation model which has almost entirely removed dependency from the state for pensions, and is the right way to go. I don’t know how you solve the care system. The NHS really needs fixing so hopefully if they can find a way to fix care, it might help improve the NHS.

You can’t get the full state pension plus pension credit. It’s either/or.