In a former life I was a UK GP and for my sins also a Deputy Medical Director for some NHS organisations do like the Bear more than well versed in being on call both admitting patients and ‚finding‘ beds for new admissions.
It has been bonkers that these ‚ready for discharge‘ and therefore as well as the hospital was going to make, patients were stopping the more ill from getting in to where they needed to be, that is out off the ambulances, A&E wards and corridors.
I applaud Burnham for tackling this and going about it the right way.
He has a stonking majority in Parliament and Labour needs to deliver what is important to ordinary people.
This is one of these things.
Whilst at it he also promised to repair energy bills, the relation with Europe. Sorting boat crossings is even easier so I hope he tackles that one too.
Mediocrity and grey have too long been the choice of colour.
I fear the vast majority of people erroneously believe that the state will step in to provide care . Wrong .
If you have a medical need , you qualify ( maybe) for free NHS Continuing Health Care , if you are simply frail you won’t qualify .It’s incredibly difficult to meet the criteria.
That means you pay , with assets you have accrued . Give them away & it’s wilful deprivation of assets …
Even if you have the c£1k a week to pay for care , there is really little choice out there & it’s mostly ‘ for profit.’
There are some hard truths that the population needs to hear .
An insurance scheme , state run, to provide care is a bold & necessary aspiration .
Why take money from pensioners though, we are already struggling. Why not tax the rich which governments are not keen to do. Or add a little extra to NI contributions
Except he's precisely NOT "taking money from [us] pensioners".
He's just not increasing pensions quite as fast, which is a very different thing.
I too think some changes to capital gains tax are way overdue, because if you're really rich, you can take "capital gains" instead of income. If it's reinvested in actual useful activity in the UK, maybe you should get a rebate, but if it's moved to a tax haven or spent on posh luxuries, it's income.
Why should the very rich pay a smaller proportion of their actual income in tax than the rest of us?
Puzzled by your logic - he IS taking future money away from pensioners trying to live on a pension which is among the lowest in Europe and coping with a neoliberal rentier society which prioritises greed over compassion.
"Future money" doesn't exist, I'm afraid - it's money that tricksters & con-men like "journalists" in the Sun & politicians in RefUK are promising to pay you, but that promise isn't worth the air it takes to say it.
Burnham was just tacitly admitting that fact, and pointing out that if you want that promised money, you will also have to pay other tricksters & con-men a small fortune to provide social care if you are so unfortunate as to need it.
UK pensions still aren't great, but they're much better than they were when the triple lock was introduced. I'm a pensioner, and I can see that my income is doing much better than that of the younger people I see around me & that's not going to carry on for ever.
Burnham's proposal looks like it might perhaps be a fair deal, although there's a lot of negotiating to do before we get there.
But the cost of living is too high. Prices are sky high of basics and utilities and they keep rising. All we have is our pension to live on. So that needs to keep up with high prices. We all paid our taxes to have a decent pension so why penalise us? I’m also a WASPI - expected to retire at 60 and then had to wait 6 more years to get a pension, so never took out a private pension.
We need a good NHS and good social care but they should tax the very wealthy !
The thing is though, NI has never been a savings pot for your own pension. It's always been paying for the pensions and care of our parents and grandparents, and hoping that it stays that way when we retire.
The WASPI debacle has been piss poor and I really feel for people in your situation and you should be due support to make up those shortfalls. But there is an argument to be made that with increasing life expectancy (not necessarily linked to good quality of life) that the average pensioner in 2026 will not have paid in as much as they use through NHS, pensions, pension credits etc. across their lifetime. Especially when you consider the majority of benefits are issued to workers in UC or workers who access PIP so that they can actually participate in the workforce.
You've already benefitted from NHS care if you get ill, have a child, education of that child, etc. and the failure has been on successive governments selling the state pension as anything other than a poorly managed pyramid scheme that requires greater input from a dwindling working tax base year on year.
OBR has already calculated that our hostile attitude to migration has cost billions and unfortunately, this pressure to make the UK more hostile has come predominantly from the eldest in our society. Costing us tax revenue as migrants are vey often a net contributor being young, healthy and often in good paying jobs, but also making it harder and less appealing to get the ‘low skilled’ work that we rely on in the health and care sectors. Makes NHS trusts and councils rely on costly agency staff to plug gaps.
But absolutely, hundred percent agree that we should be taxing the wealthy more. They should match Capital Gains Tax to Income tax as yes, they do risk their own money but simultaneously often have the wealth to do so without the risk of becoming bankrupt (if they do, maybe better financial planning and less risk would have been due).
We should also stop wealthy Brits moving overseas to benefit from lower tax. If they benefit from their British passport, the government supporting their business through tax breaks and grants they should be paying their fair share
Hi Bear, This is a nicely balanced column and one with which I largely agree. The creation of an NCS properly integrated with the NHS is not only bold, it is vital if the NHS is to continue and thrive. That said, the eventual design must not be one that allows either body to refer a patient from one to the other just to take them off the books as it were; proper integration must include clinicians and management.
I'm 66 now and I know that I will at some point require care, care that my family would not be able to provide and as of now, I would have to fund from savings and the possible sale of my house. I am more than willing to pay extra tax to fund a NCS and if that means my state pension rises more slowly, I'm fine with that. I have never been the 'more jam today' sort.
There is another factor in play here. The triple lock was very necessary when it was introduced - the value of the state pension was falling in real terms and real pensioner poverty was rife. While pensioner poverty is still unacceptable of course, and it exists amongst people whose only source of income is their state pension, the triple lock has gone a long way to reducing this and the policy has become a heffalump trap laid by the Tories who knew that an economically competent party, which is very much not them, would have to reform it at some stage. I hope that people can see that the policy does need reform and vote accordingly.
Another important factor is that there are tens of 000s of pensioner like me who have comfortable occupational pensions as well as the state pension. Quite frankly I cannot and will not justify the triple lock for us - we just don't need it. This brings me back to my big issue with Burnham. At some stage he will have to reform the UK tax code to make it a) simpler, b) properly progressive and c) plug all the tax avoidance loopholes especially offshoring. He can then use the extra tax that this will raise on people like me to continue to reduce pensioner poverty and poverty more widely.
Finally, your point about building a coalition is important even though Polanski has already said that he favours wealth taxes instead of reforming the triple lock - to my mind Zack's got things the wrong way round.
The other thing that needs to be done is to fund HMRC properly and let it do its job. That will bring in billions on just current tax law. (ISTR a figure of £140billion - can't be right surely?)
Yay! Totally agree (((Bear))) 🐻 That was a powerful and compelling speech. I loved it. And I am a working pensioner, admittedly in low/no budget indie films, but I also hope that if I ever need care, there will be some provision. Andy B still has a long way to go, but I'm genuinely impressed by his first determined steps, up the steep and rocky mountain! Go Andy, and love to you and yours (((🐻))) Xx
National care funding... it is a hard trade-off indeed. I think they should look elsewhere, where the money really is, rather than pensions.
I do strongly resent politicians who talk about the state pension as a top-up for wealthy or even comfortable pensioners. I will only get the state pension which is set at such a disgracefully low amount compared to similar EU countries. So I'll be scraping the barrel every day of every week of every month. Then there are still many on the old state pension system who will suffer just as much even with tax credits as top-ups/gatekeepers to other forms of support such as the winter fuel payments.
The increases in state pension are still often out pacing wage growth, which in turn is used to pay for pensions in the form of NI. When you factor in the price of care (that has been deliberately siphoned off to the private sector leading to massive price increases to councils and central government ) surely it makes sense to at least fund part of that through this change seeing as the tax base for supporting the current system is dwindling.
The big issue is this constant framing of government spending as some giant debit account where we need to balance the books. We issue debt in our own currency. Every time the government spends, new money is made and they tax it to recoup it where it then disappears. Unfortunately, the gaming of it as a household income and simultaneously allowing teh wealthiest to accumulate it and stop it returning is part of our problem.
As a pensioner, who doesn't get £20k pa, I'm taxed on my small private pension.
I'm "lucky", I live in my own fully paid for home, run a car, and have a beer with friends once or twice a week. Fortunately I have a side hustle of singing and playing guitar in a bar band - although these days that rarely pays for the fuel to get to and from gigs or the strings I break, let alone the Vocalzone throat sweets!
I gave up on Labour after they roasted Corbyn, and think Burnham is Starmer with a Northern accent. And although he appears to be doing better than his predecessor so far, this is yet another divisive idea which is likely to set the current younger generations against the older ones, and the older ones against the government, whilst the billionaires rub their hands together and thank Burnham for not taxing them any more on their pocket change.
its all bread and circuses, and its getting to the stage where I can afford neither, and am being made to feel its my fault.
The state pension is totally inadequate and since the sharp decline in the availability of decent pension schemes by which I mean those that are guaranteed to provide a decent retirement income, there are far too many in the population who will struggle in retirement. Removing the quite recently introduced third element of the lock in exchange for better social care will hit the poorest pensioners hardest as the way we measure inflation is skewed. For everyone on lower incomes the ‘representative basket of goods’ is to my mind, quite misleading. Retirement does not change the ‘fixed’ costs of living such as accommodation, food, transport & utilities.
They become a much more significant chunk so for those on lower incomes, real inflation is much higher than the percentages published.
The state pension system needs a complete overhaul and something like the Australian system introduced. Contributions to it by the government e.g. tax relief and state contributions may count as ‘benefits’ but pensions in payment should then be treated as earned entitlement not subject to material change without proper notice.
I agree that they haven't done enough to win my vote back, but it's hopeful...
As a pensioner I'm torn. We are on the 'old' rate, which is significantly lower than the 'new' rate. This already feels very unfair, although we get by OK.
Fortunately, here in France there is a reasonable care system
Quick question that someone out there may be able to answer, as I'm not finding it on the interweb. What about Northern ireland? Care here is managed by the Dept of health and social services and councils have no responsibility. Im assuming any savings from removal of the triple lock will come via Barnett. There is therefore no guarantee this money will be used to support social care. But...perhaps im ahead of myself and clarity will manifest later.
True. I bought a house in Norfolk the year after starting a job near Heathrow. Colleagues kept asking me why... I now have a mortgage free 4/5 bed in a nice area. It even brings in some income, as I have two lodgers.
As I opined and essentially agreed with a post you made earlier this week (about immigration)… we have to grow our economy in order to pay for our futures and we do so by having more people in work. I’m not saying others like those on pensions (like me) don’t contribute but that as a broad brush, it’s those of so called working age (generalising here) 20-60 who largely impact the grow one’s economy model in the western world. More people = net immigration. End of. (We’re getting older / birth rates declining being the maths of it).
The UK has a lot of challenges to sort. But which ones should be we focusing on. That will inevitably depend on the lens you look through.
E.g. do we need a national care service? Well, yes maybe we do. Look I don’t know the details yet, does anyone? But should we be fixing the thing we already have, or introducing something new? It is far from clear what burnhams proposal is yet. And either way how should we be paying for it?
I don’t think we should be borrowing more money. FFS our debt interest is roughly around 10% +/- of our governments overall cost budget. So should we be paying for it from outside of the challenge area or for, within the challenge area? E.g. somehow do we find the cash from within the social care budget or from outside. Borrowing from our futures has to stop, or more accurately slow down.
Now I get there’s an argument that getting rid of the triple lock “could” be considered to be paying for it from within the overall area. I’m getting older, older people in general need more care / help from our wonderful NHS so maybe it’s ok that I “might” not get a in line pension rise if that’s the way the triple lock worked in that particular year. And that is used to fund (in whole or part) said care service. But it feels like tapping up the current older lot to pay for both the current older lot and the future older lot. And the current older feel like we’ve already more than paid our dues for us.
I also think there is an argument that IF the government essentially does a reasonable overall job, then in practical reality the amount of pension increases wouldn’t be much if any different from the double lock we’ll have in 2030? I.e 2.5% or inflation. But if so… then what additional future monies is burnham thinking he is going to get to pay for this national care service? (Maybe I don’t understand…).
Roughly we spend 50% of our budget on Health, Social and welfare. With either debt interest or education coming next in and around 9%. So we send the same servicing our debt as we do on our children’s education. 🤔.
What I think I’d like to see is more joined up thinking. I’d rather someone get on with the overall job than seek headlines basically. Do we need a national care service. Yes we probably do. It would help with the “beds in / out” challenges we clearly have, it would hopefully provide better help for those that need it, which is what it should be aiming for.
But what else do we need to fix? Let’s keep this simple, and stay with the identified 50% above. Our health / social / welfare services were designed for a different age. My thoughts / principle is simple. We should provide for those that do need it. End of. That’s what a responsible society should be doing, I think. We need an overall thing for today’s challenges and those of the near / medium future we can reasonably predict.
I’m no longer close to the details, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing things - meaning providing things - we just don’t need to do anymore. Some of that is down to us. I.e. cultural. If this is you, Stop going to A&E for a minor cut finger, needing a plaster - you know who you are. So I think part of this is to find money from within the existing 50% to also help fund what we need. I don’t mean efficiencies. Finding those should be a normal part of the day to day of running such a “business”. I mean for far too long the list of stuff our NHS, Social, Welfare, local authorities have to deal with keeps growing. Nothing seems to stop. That can’t be right.
So… fine. Alter the triple lock. But don’t be so headline grabbing, think things through FFS. Where are the dependencies, consequences. Work that out. What are the root causes? Stop just treating symptoms, resolve root causes.
Oh and btw… 😂 when those pesky folk start folding back to our shores cos they like the idea of a national care service… what will that mean.. more people of working age from elsewhere to fund our future… 😉.
The idea that any PM needs to get funds from one project (welfare, or pensions) to fund another (a care service, or the NHS, or education, or defence etc) fundamentally misunderstands how government funds its expenditure. It's not a choice between pensions and care.
When the government decides to put money into a service, the Bank of England creates the funds for the government. The UK has a sovereign fiat currency, it does not have to beg, borrow, or steal from other projects, to fund the decisions is has made.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) explains how the economy in a sovereign government with its own currency (the UK, the USA, Australia...) actually works. Please see Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth, or Richard Murphy for more information on this important topic.
Yes, Richard is good on explaining MMT, though he does seem to comment rather a long way outside his lane in recent months. He had a discussion with Zack Polansky a few months ago.
I'm a pensioner, and reasonably comfortable. But I'm single, so no family care for me!
I will most gladly give up any sort of lock if it sees the National Care Service get underway, as I don't see how I would pay directly for more than the most minimal help.
I fail to see how this small change to the pension lock will significantly affect expenditure on state pensions. It will only make a difference in years where wage growth is higher than the other two, which it isn't always, and might only be a fraction of a percent. It's also not a firm figure because no-one can forecast any of that, unlike care costs which are a known quantity. So suggesting that one will pay for the other several years ahead is just wishful thinking.
They have also said the state pension would still be adjusted according to wages, just not in the precise triple lock formula. So hardly anything will really change for pensions. It strikes me this is just a sop to the "but how will you pay for it" economic illiterates.
In a former life I was a UK GP and for my sins also a Deputy Medical Director for some NHS organisations do like the Bear more than well versed in being on call both admitting patients and ‚finding‘ beds for new admissions.
It has been bonkers that these ‚ready for discharge‘ and therefore as well as the hospital was going to make, patients were stopping the more ill from getting in to where they needed to be, that is out off the ambulances, A&E wards and corridors.
I applaud Burnham for tackling this and going about it the right way.
He has a stonking majority in Parliament and Labour needs to deliver what is important to ordinary people.
This is one of these things.
Whilst at it he also promised to repair energy bills, the relation with Europe. Sorting boat crossings is even easier so I hope he tackles that one too.
Mediocrity and grey have too long been the choice of colour.
Ride on!
I fear the vast majority of people erroneously believe that the state will step in to provide care . Wrong .
If you have a medical need , you qualify ( maybe) for free NHS Continuing Health Care , if you are simply frail you won’t qualify .It’s incredibly difficult to meet the criteria.
That means you pay , with assets you have accrued . Give them away & it’s wilful deprivation of assets …
Even if you have the c£1k a week to pay for care , there is really little choice out there & it’s mostly ‘ for profit.’
There are some hard truths that the population needs to hear .
An insurance scheme , state run, to provide care is a bold & necessary aspiration .
Why take money from pensioners though, we are already struggling. Why not tax the rich which governments are not keen to do. Or add a little extra to NI contributions
Except he's precisely NOT "taking money from [us] pensioners".
He's just not increasing pensions quite as fast, which is a very different thing.
I too think some changes to capital gains tax are way overdue, because if you're really rich, you can take "capital gains" instead of income. If it's reinvested in actual useful activity in the UK, maybe you should get a rebate, but if it's moved to a tax haven or spent on posh luxuries, it's income.
Why should the very rich pay a smaller proportion of their actual income in tax than the rest of us?
Puzzled by your logic - he IS taking future money away from pensioners trying to live on a pension which is among the lowest in Europe and coping with a neoliberal rentier society which prioritises greed over compassion.
"Future money" doesn't exist, I'm afraid - it's money that tricksters & con-men like "journalists" in the Sun & politicians in RefUK are promising to pay you, but that promise isn't worth the air it takes to say it.
Burnham was just tacitly admitting that fact, and pointing out that if you want that promised money, you will also have to pay other tricksters & con-men a small fortune to provide social care if you are so unfortunate as to need it.
UK pensions still aren't great, but they're much better than they were when the triple lock was introduced. I'm a pensioner, and I can see that my income is doing much better than that of the younger people I see around me & that's not going to carry on for ever.
Burnham's proposal looks like it might perhaps be a fair deal, although there's a lot of negotiating to do before we get there.
Agree
But the cost of living is too high. Prices are sky high of basics and utilities and they keep rising. All we have is our pension to live on. So that needs to keep up with high prices. We all paid our taxes to have a decent pension so why penalise us? I’m also a WASPI - expected to retire at 60 and then had to wait 6 more years to get a pension, so never took out a private pension.
We need a good NHS and good social care but they should tax the very wealthy !
The thing is though, NI has never been a savings pot for your own pension. It's always been paying for the pensions and care of our parents and grandparents, and hoping that it stays that way when we retire.
The WASPI debacle has been piss poor and I really feel for people in your situation and you should be due support to make up those shortfalls. But there is an argument to be made that with increasing life expectancy (not necessarily linked to good quality of life) that the average pensioner in 2026 will not have paid in as much as they use through NHS, pensions, pension credits etc. across their lifetime. Especially when you consider the majority of benefits are issued to workers in UC or workers who access PIP so that they can actually participate in the workforce.
You've already benefitted from NHS care if you get ill, have a child, education of that child, etc. and the failure has been on successive governments selling the state pension as anything other than a poorly managed pyramid scheme that requires greater input from a dwindling working tax base year on year.
OBR has already calculated that our hostile attitude to migration has cost billions and unfortunately, this pressure to make the UK more hostile has come predominantly from the eldest in our society. Costing us tax revenue as migrants are vey often a net contributor being young, healthy and often in good paying jobs, but also making it harder and less appealing to get the ‘low skilled’ work that we rely on in the health and care sectors. Makes NHS trusts and councils rely on costly agency staff to plug gaps.
But absolutely, hundred percent agree that we should be taxing the wealthy more. They should match Capital Gains Tax to Income tax as yes, they do risk their own money but simultaneously often have the wealth to do so without the risk of becoming bankrupt (if they do, maybe better financial planning and less risk would have been due).
We should also stop wealthy Brits moving overseas to benefit from lower tax. If they benefit from their British passport, the government supporting their business through tax breaks and grants they should be paying their fair share
Hi Bear, This is a nicely balanced column and one with which I largely agree. The creation of an NCS properly integrated with the NHS is not only bold, it is vital if the NHS is to continue and thrive. That said, the eventual design must not be one that allows either body to refer a patient from one to the other just to take them off the books as it were; proper integration must include clinicians and management.
I'm 66 now and I know that I will at some point require care, care that my family would not be able to provide and as of now, I would have to fund from savings and the possible sale of my house. I am more than willing to pay extra tax to fund a NCS and if that means my state pension rises more slowly, I'm fine with that. I have never been the 'more jam today' sort.
There is another factor in play here. The triple lock was very necessary when it was introduced - the value of the state pension was falling in real terms and real pensioner poverty was rife. While pensioner poverty is still unacceptable of course, and it exists amongst people whose only source of income is their state pension, the triple lock has gone a long way to reducing this and the policy has become a heffalump trap laid by the Tories who knew that an economically competent party, which is very much not them, would have to reform it at some stage. I hope that people can see that the policy does need reform and vote accordingly.
Another important factor is that there are tens of 000s of pensioner like me who have comfortable occupational pensions as well as the state pension. Quite frankly I cannot and will not justify the triple lock for us - we just don't need it. This brings me back to my big issue with Burnham. At some stage he will have to reform the UK tax code to make it a) simpler, b) properly progressive and c) plug all the tax avoidance loopholes especially offshoring. He can then use the extra tax that this will raise on people like me to continue to reduce pensioner poverty and poverty more widely.
Finally, your point about building a coalition is important even though Polanski has already said that he favours wealth taxes instead of reforming the triple lock - to my mind Zack's got things the wrong way round.
Anyhoo ... just a few thoughts. Andy
Agree with you, Andy.
The other thing that needs to be done is to fund HMRC properly and let it do its job. That will bring in billions on just current tax law. (ISTR a figure of £140billion - can't be right surely?)
Yay! Totally agree (((Bear))) 🐻 That was a powerful and compelling speech. I loved it. And I am a working pensioner, admittedly in low/no budget indie films, but I also hope that if I ever need care, there will be some provision. Andy B still has a long way to go, but I'm genuinely impressed by his first determined steps, up the steep and rocky mountain! Go Andy, and love to you and yours (((🐻))) Xx
National care funding... it is a hard trade-off indeed. I think they should look elsewhere, where the money really is, rather than pensions.
I do strongly resent politicians who talk about the state pension as a top-up for wealthy or even comfortable pensioners. I will only get the state pension which is set at such a disgracefully low amount compared to similar EU countries. So I'll be scraping the barrel every day of every week of every month. Then there are still many on the old state pension system who will suffer just as much even with tax credits as top-ups/gatekeepers to other forms of support such as the winter fuel payments.
The increases in state pension are still often out pacing wage growth, which in turn is used to pay for pensions in the form of NI. When you factor in the price of care (that has been deliberately siphoned off to the private sector leading to massive price increases to councils and central government ) surely it makes sense to at least fund part of that through this change seeing as the tax base for supporting the current system is dwindling.
The big issue is this constant framing of government spending as some giant debit account where we need to balance the books. We issue debt in our own currency. Every time the government spends, new money is made and they tax it to recoup it where it then disappears. Unfortunately, the gaming of it as a household income and simultaneously allowing teh wealthiest to accumulate it and stop it returning is part of our problem.
Have you seen the price of Citadel paint recently?
There's better paint out there 😉
Have you see the price of Vallejo paint recently?
As a pensioner, who doesn't get £20k pa, I'm taxed on my small private pension.
I'm "lucky", I live in my own fully paid for home, run a car, and have a beer with friends once or twice a week. Fortunately I have a side hustle of singing and playing guitar in a bar band - although these days that rarely pays for the fuel to get to and from gigs or the strings I break, let alone the Vocalzone throat sweets!
I gave up on Labour after they roasted Corbyn, and think Burnham is Starmer with a Northern accent. And although he appears to be doing better than his predecessor so far, this is yet another divisive idea which is likely to set the current younger generations against the older ones, and the older ones against the government, whilst the billionaires rub their hands together and thank Burnham for not taxing them any more on their pocket change.
its all bread and circuses, and its getting to the stage where I can afford neither, and am being made to feel its my fault.
The state pension is totally inadequate and since the sharp decline in the availability of decent pension schemes by which I mean those that are guaranteed to provide a decent retirement income, there are far too many in the population who will struggle in retirement. Removing the quite recently introduced third element of the lock in exchange for better social care will hit the poorest pensioners hardest as the way we measure inflation is skewed. For everyone on lower incomes the ‘representative basket of goods’ is to my mind, quite misleading. Retirement does not change the ‘fixed’ costs of living such as accommodation, food, transport & utilities.
They become a much more significant chunk so for those on lower incomes, real inflation is much higher than the percentages published.
The state pension system needs a complete overhaul and something like the Australian system introduced. Contributions to it by the government e.g. tax relief and state contributions may count as ‘benefits’ but pensions in payment should then be treated as earned entitlement not subject to material change without proper notice.
I agree that they haven't done enough to win my vote back, but it's hopeful...
As a pensioner I'm torn. We are on the 'old' rate, which is significantly lower than the 'new' rate. This already feels very unfair, although we get by OK.
Fortunately, here in France there is a reasonable care system
Quick question that someone out there may be able to answer, as I'm not finding it on the interweb. What about Northern ireland? Care here is managed by the Dept of health and social services and councils have no responsibility. Im assuming any savings from removal of the triple lock will come via Barnett. There is therefore no guarantee this money will be used to support social care. But...perhaps im ahead of myself and clarity will manifest later.
Just a thought Bear. Move out of London and you may be able to afford a house sooner than you think.
True. I bought a house in Norfolk the year after starting a job near Heathrow. Colleagues kept asking me why... I now have a mortgage free 4/5 bed in a nice area. It even brings in some income, as I have two lodgers.
As I opined and essentially agreed with a post you made earlier this week (about immigration)… we have to grow our economy in order to pay for our futures and we do so by having more people in work. I’m not saying others like those on pensions (like me) don’t contribute but that as a broad brush, it’s those of so called working age (generalising here) 20-60 who largely impact the grow one’s economy model in the western world. More people = net immigration. End of. (We’re getting older / birth rates declining being the maths of it).
The UK has a lot of challenges to sort. But which ones should be we focusing on. That will inevitably depend on the lens you look through.
E.g. do we need a national care service? Well, yes maybe we do. Look I don’t know the details yet, does anyone? But should we be fixing the thing we already have, or introducing something new? It is far from clear what burnhams proposal is yet. And either way how should we be paying for it?
I don’t think we should be borrowing more money. FFS our debt interest is roughly around 10% +/- of our governments overall cost budget. So should we be paying for it from outside of the challenge area or for, within the challenge area? E.g. somehow do we find the cash from within the social care budget or from outside. Borrowing from our futures has to stop, or more accurately slow down.
Now I get there’s an argument that getting rid of the triple lock “could” be considered to be paying for it from within the overall area. I’m getting older, older people in general need more care / help from our wonderful NHS so maybe it’s ok that I “might” not get a in line pension rise if that’s the way the triple lock worked in that particular year. And that is used to fund (in whole or part) said care service. But it feels like tapping up the current older lot to pay for both the current older lot and the future older lot. And the current older feel like we’ve already more than paid our dues for us.
I also think there is an argument that IF the government essentially does a reasonable overall job, then in practical reality the amount of pension increases wouldn’t be much if any different from the double lock we’ll have in 2030? I.e 2.5% or inflation. But if so… then what additional future monies is burnham thinking he is going to get to pay for this national care service? (Maybe I don’t understand…).
Roughly we spend 50% of our budget on Health, Social and welfare. With either debt interest or education coming next in and around 9%. So we send the same servicing our debt as we do on our children’s education. 🤔.
What I think I’d like to see is more joined up thinking. I’d rather someone get on with the overall job than seek headlines basically. Do we need a national care service. Yes we probably do. It would help with the “beds in / out” challenges we clearly have, it would hopefully provide better help for those that need it, which is what it should be aiming for.
But what else do we need to fix? Let’s keep this simple, and stay with the identified 50% above. Our health / social / welfare services were designed for a different age. My thoughts / principle is simple. We should provide for those that do need it. End of. That’s what a responsible society should be doing, I think. We need an overall thing for today’s challenges and those of the near / medium future we can reasonably predict.
I’m no longer close to the details, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing things - meaning providing things - we just don’t need to do anymore. Some of that is down to us. I.e. cultural. If this is you, Stop going to A&E for a minor cut finger, needing a plaster - you know who you are. So I think part of this is to find money from within the existing 50% to also help fund what we need. I don’t mean efficiencies. Finding those should be a normal part of the day to day of running such a “business”. I mean for far too long the list of stuff our NHS, Social, Welfare, local authorities have to deal with keeps growing. Nothing seems to stop. That can’t be right.
So… fine. Alter the triple lock. But don’t be so headline grabbing, think things through FFS. Where are the dependencies, consequences. Work that out. What are the root causes? Stop just treating symptoms, resolve root causes.
Oh and btw… 😂 when those pesky folk start folding back to our shores cos they like the idea of a national care service… what will that mean.. more people of working age from elsewhere to fund our future… 😉.
The idea that any PM needs to get funds from one project (welfare, or pensions) to fund another (a care service, or the NHS, or education, or defence etc) fundamentally misunderstands how government funds its expenditure. It's not a choice between pensions and care.
When the government decides to put money into a service, the Bank of England creates the funds for the government. The UK has a sovereign fiat currency, it does not have to beg, borrow, or steal from other projects, to fund the decisions is has made.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) explains how the economy in a sovereign government with its own currency (the UK, the USA, Australia...) actually works. Please see Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth, or Richard Murphy for more information on this important topic.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/
Yes, Richard is good on explaining MMT, though he does seem to comment rather a long way outside his lane in recent months. He had a discussion with Zack Polansky a few months ago.
I'm a pensioner, and reasonably comfortable. But I'm single, so no family care for me!
I will most gladly give up any sort of lock if it sees the National Care Service get underway, as I don't see how I would pay directly for more than the most minimal help.
So - hurrah!!!!
I fail to see how this small change to the pension lock will significantly affect expenditure on state pensions. It will only make a difference in years where wage growth is higher than the other two, which it isn't always, and might only be a fraction of a percent. It's also not a firm figure because no-one can forecast any of that, unlike care costs which are a known quantity. So suggesting that one will pay for the other several years ahead is just wishful thinking.
They have also said the state pension would still be adjusted according to wages, just not in the precise triple lock formula. So hardly anything will really change for pensions. It strikes me this is just a sop to the "but how will you pay for it" economic illiterates.