The triple lock and social care need reform but the Prime Minister’s proposals won’t cut it - Ros Altmann

The announcement of an ‘adjustment’ to the State Pension triple lock, designed supposedly to save money that will help fund a free national social care service for all who need it, has generated plenty of comment.

But there is no clarity at all about how this will all work in practice and, in any case, the changes are only due to start in 2030, so who knows whether this Government will even be in place by then.

The triple lock is not dead. It lives on until we find a better way to protect pensioners. Changing the way the state pension triple lock works and reforming social care are both long overdue, but the crucial details have been left unaddressed.

The only thing that's clear is that the potential changes to the triple lock will mean slightly lower pensions in the long-term, but will not raise anything like the amounts needed to fund a free social care service, of the kind suggested by the Prime Minister.

I applaud the attempt to try to announce reforms, while suggesting that pensioners will not lose out much and will also benefit from a new social care service if they need it. But the political promises just don't stand up to serious scrutiny. In terms of policy, rather than just political headlines, the rhetoric does not match reality.

Firstly, let’s look at the triple lock. Retaining the CPI and 2.5 per cent elements cannot be relied on to protect state pensions properly. Indeed, keeping the 2.5 per cent minimum – which has no economic or social rationale - is really surprising.

Studies which have considered reforming this political sacred cow have usually focussed on dropping the 2.5 per cent and policy experts tend to agree that the most important element of pensioner protection is to ensure their incomes keep up with earnings, not CPI.

Yet, that is the part that will be dropped. But we are told it will be replaced by an alternative way of ensuring state pensions keep up with earnings anyway. That is worrying because it will be left to future politicians to decide when and how to act.

The triple lock was introduced in 2011 because the UK’s basic state pension had fallen so far behind the rest of the economy and pensioners were often in poverty.

And the reason this happened was that, for many years, the state pension only increased in line with prices and not earnings.

There are still millions of older people living on very little and struggling to make ends meet.

Our basic state pension is one of the lowest in the developed world. Older citizens who are living just on the state pension, will understandably fear going back to the bad old days which the triple lock has helped move away from.

It's time for a grown up debate. What we need is a proper cross party review of both State Pensions and social care. The two issues – so crucial for millions of citizens - can't be resolved by politicians alone and certainly not just by one party.

The Government has already set up two such reviews, the Pensions Commission and the Social Care review – both due to report next year.

Why is the Prime Minister not waiting for their recommendations before jumping the gun and announcing changes from 2030 now?

Why not ask the two major reviews to look at these proposals.