Burnham’s National Care Scam

At the Labour Party conference, Andy Burnham proposed changing the state pension triple lock from 2030, while keeping it unchanged for the rest of the current Parliament. The existing system guarantees annual increases based on whichever is highest of inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5%. Burnham argued that the future system should still protect pensions against inflation and ensure pensioners share in rising prosperity, but would alter the earnings element to generate savings.

He proposed using those savings to help establish a National Care Service, including free personal care for people who currently face care charges. Burnham argued that this would create a different settlement for older people: rather than continually increasing pensions through the existing triple lock while leaving many pensioners to pay for social care, the government would redirect some resources towards publicly funded care. His actual (ad-libbed?) words were:

‘We promised in our manifesto to keep the Triple Lock unchanged throughout this Parliament. I will honour that promise. I will honour that promise, and I will do more. That promise will take the state pension to a record high.

‘From there, in April 2030, we will adjust it. The state pension will continue to rise every year at least by prices or 2.5%. And it will hold its value relative to earnings over time so that pensioners will always share in the rising prosperity of the nation.’

Burnham qualified the announcement during a subsequent tour of TV and radio studios to insist he wasn’t abolishing the triple lock as a concept, but changing the way it operates. In interviews the following morning, he described the proposal as an ‘adjustment’, rather than a scrapping. He explained the earnings test would remain but be assessed over a longer period rather than year by year, thus removing the annual earnings ‘ratchet’ in the existing system, which can permanently raise the pension following a year of unusually strong wage growth.

But will this change generate significant (or any) savings to establish a free at the point of use National Care Service? Or is it, Great British Railways style, a cosmetic change of no benefit involving Blair levels of deception and cant?

So, how much money will be available for the National Care Service? Let’s look back at the 16 years since the Tories introduced the triple lock in 2010. Note that the inflation calculation changes partway through from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) – with CPI nearly always being lower than RPI.

Suffice it to say, the overall Triple Lock increase in the state pension has been over 80%, whereas relying on inflation it would have been nearer to 60% – a potentially massive historic saving. However, all that money has been spent on pensions, plus the pension rate has ratcheted up to its current level.

The National Audit Office reports that for 2024-25 State Pension expenditure was £137.4 billion, around 47% of the Department of Work and Pensions’ total benefit spending. In 2025/26 it was expected to increase to around £145.6 – £146.1 billion. The trajectory is upwards, not just because of the increase in state pension, but because of a savings-sapping increase in the pensioners.

If we look at the number of pensioners between now and 2030, the total actually falls momentarily as the UK State Pension age increases from 66 to 67, a transition that began in April 2026 and will be fully complete by April 2028.

2025–26 13.196 million
2026–27 13.209 million
2027–28 13.075 million
2028–29 13.157 million

However, the number then continues to rise and by 2030/31 reaches 13.7 million. By 2034, 14.2 million. Meanwhile, the working population increases, but only by about 100,000, from 56.8 million to 56.9 million. Meaning Triple Lock or no Triple Lock, more money will be required for pensions, not less, suggesting any freed-up funding for a National Care Service would be less than nothing.

The Adult Social Care Finance Report and King’s Fund analysis tells us total adult social care expenditure by local authorities is £34.5 billion (total) or £29.4 billion gross current expenditure (after excluding money received from the NHS). Long-term support for older people (65+) is about £12.0 billion. Of that, nearly two-thirds went on care homes, with residential care homes taking £5.0 billion and nursing homes, £2.6 billion.

According to LaingBuisson’s Care Homes for Older People UK Market Report for 2025/26, the Total UK market for care homes is £27–£27.3 billion. Self-funded (private pay) residents make up about 45% of the number of residents but 55% of the total market value. This equates to a private-pay segment of roughly £14.1 billion. Self-funders typically pay higher weekly fees than local authority rates for the same type of care (often 20–40% more), which is why their share of total spending is higher than their share of residents.

In short, the public is paying roughly £14 billion a year out of their pocket just in care home fees, while the taxpayer (via councils and the NHS) covers the bulk of the rest of the £27 billion market.

Therefore, a free-at-the-point-of-use National Care System will need £14 billion a year to cover privately paid care home fees alone – from a non-existent ‘Triple Lock saving’. The suspicion is that Burham’s comments are reassuring but dishonest waffle, the details of the inconsistencies of which might be drowned out by an opportunistic snap election.
 

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