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?

Pensioners, all of those who receive state pension, receive an annual uplift at a minimum of 2.5%; the last one was 4.8%.

Uplift on not very much is still not very much. I think last year's largesse was completely swallowed up by council tax and water increasing.

Meanwhile how much did MPs get? £ 2k a year if I recall.

Youre self funded until your assets reach £23,000 (or similar figure)

They are trying to sweeten dropping the triple lock by promising free social care.
As others have said, that won’t be enough to cover it and so far there have been no details as to how it will work.

If someone needs to move into a care home, would they or their family have a choice of which one? Will it be a place similar to a hospital, as in several people to a room, as it will be cheaper than individual en-suite rooms?

Care at home, will it actually provide four visits per day because that is what is required and not condense it down to three as it’s cheaper?

Has nursing care been mentioned at all, as I’ve only heard talk of social care, what about the many people who require it?

Nursing care is already free in theory. No there won’t be any choice. In practice people with money will continue to self fund precisely so they get that choice.

Nursing care is linked to health needs and should only be care that requires an actual nurse to give it - very little meets this threshold (IV medication etc.)

Social care is care replacing activities of daily living - things you would normally do for yourself, but are now finding it harder due to age and/or disability - it can be done by most adults.

They are entirely different things.

Social care is entirely predictable, like childcare and should be planned for by those of us getting older.

Nursing care is unpredictable, linked to disease processes.

It’s future pensioners that you need to think about as it will take a long time for the impact to be felt

ao you wil end up with the less well off pensioner on benefits as they are today and everyone else needing to save more into their private pensions and those juts outside the boundaries of benefits of being able to save more who get stung

I am not convinced that removing triple lock will save much money ....any of the locks individually help prevent the state pension falling too low. Unless the proposal is for no locks at all.

The govt spends £300 million every day servicing debt. Difficult and unpopular decisions need to be made to reduce our debt.
means test attendance allowance
remove the triple lock
We need to protect the most vulnerable in society. Next year I will pay an extra 2% tax on my savings which doesn’t thrill me but govt debt needs to be reduced.

Maybe we should all just accept that if our country is getting poorer, whilst the population grows that there is less money to go round.

So logically, we all get less - we all get poorer.

We cannot demand more more more like spoilt children at this time.

Won’t it only be committed to in the next manifesto and only be done if they win? That is a big if at this stage, but agree it needs to go as the country can’t afford it but it is another blow for people.

Agree but it should be a conversation rather than something that people are forced to do by stealth. Personally I have no real attachment to properties, my parents sold up the home I grew up in to buy a bungalow and I’ve lived in several places as an adult so don’t have any issue with downsizing when my times comes. I get that other people may have different feelings though, particularly if a home has been in a family for several generations.

@BIossomtoes in theory yes, unfortunately many families have had to battle to receive it for their loved one.

Yes. It will be in the manifesto for the next GE and there will be a mandate for it if there’s a new Labour government. I haven’t heard Burnham mention the triple lock at all.

It highlights even more the huge importance in getting people off benefits and into work so they can potentially save. Labour need to repeal their work destroying measures for a start. They need to look holistically at this not just individual tax rises.

Will it save much as there will likely still be some sort of yearly rise, just not as much. Not sure what the figures are

They should be considered separately.

The triple lock has done its job and it’s time to stop (I am a state pensioner).

There are far more “problems” with social care than the fact people with assets have to pay for it. It’s already free for those with no assets. The biggest problems I can see that need fixing in social care are a) rationing among those who get it free b) pay and quality control for paid carers c) lack of support for unpaid/family carers. These all need far more funding than they are currently getting.

It used to be a rise in line with inflation. It would be sensible to return to that.

I’d prefer to see higher rate tax relief removed from private pension contributions and the open ended subsidies to public sector pensions by private sector tax payers. Let the public sector have defined contributions like everyone else.

I’d merge income tax with NI, but uplift personal allowances, and align CGT with income tax.

As for the triple lock, a 4.8% rise is not generous on the state pension of c £12,500 pa when working age adults are deemed to need the NMW of c £21,000 pa to live on, by the government (and the living wage is c £26,500 pa). The NMW was increased last year by 6.7%, and in 2024 by 9.8%.

Regarding the higher rate tax relief, isn't that supposedly because people are paying higher rate tax when they draw it out but they often aren't because people generally get less on a pension than they earn so many higher rate tax payers probably only pays 20% tax on their pension so gain quite a lot.

Ending the triple lock will barely dent the nations' debt. It will not fund a National Care Service and we can't afford it. If it is done, it needs to go hand in hand with transferring the NHS into a social insurance co-pay system as exists on Continental Europe. My fear is that an NCS will treat everyone the same like the NHS, badly and like sh1t.

The state pension is not a vast amount of money to live on under half the national minimum wage. Many pensioners no longer have housing costs but some still rent. We are now state pensioners but apart from no longer having a mortgage all other living costs are the same as before we retired. For instance my husband recently had to have dental work one treatment took care of that months pension apart from a few quid.
Living on the state pension alone would be very tight

Neither of I. He hasn’t actually said anything at all about what financial decisions have been made. He’s said we should wait until the budget, which I’m doing.

This. When the NHS was first set up, the cost ballooned out of budget immediately. It will be the same here. Realistically, the only way it will work will be to scrap the triple lock in favour of minimal rises, have NHS style nursing homes to stop price gouging, at least 10% on all estates for inheritance tax...and it still won't touch the sides. Whilst care might be free in theory at point of access, in practice it will still be limited by local provision and need. Worst case scenario, it will be the equivalent of CAMHS where you might get seen after a hospital admission.

Germany and Japan are going through this right now - Japan has been putting the copay option up whilst Germany is adjusting the rules.

The only bright spot is that a national care agency can work at scale in a way cash strapped councils cannot. So it could do things such as commission dementia villages and create better options for highly disabled younger people. I'm not holding breath, though.

Taxing the super wealthy doesn't work as these people are very mobile and just leave for other countries. Inevitably they can only pick the pockets of the middle and upper middle class.

No, it’s the extra 20% tax relief higher rate tax payers get on contributions to their personal pension scheme; so they get 40% relief, compared to 20% for standard rate tax payers.

So if a standard rate taxpayer puts £10,000 into their pension, their employer puts another £2,000 in. Same for a higher rate taxpayer; but then they can make a claim for another £2,000, so they get tax relief of £4,000 in total.

This costs the country more than the triple lock!