Would Andy Burnham scrap the triple lock?

As he prepares his government, prime-minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham has made plenty of expensive promises. He wants money for defence, for taking the utilities back under public control, for tax cuts for pubs and restaurants, and for the reindustrialisation that will, somehow or other, ‘end forty years of neoliberalism’. Now, his reported economic advisers have come up with a plan to pay for it all. They have, apparently, suggested that he scrap the ‘triple lock’ for pensioners. This is a good idea – but there is no way that ‘Our Andy’ is going to do anything that bold.

The list of spending commitments racked up by Burnham on his march on No. 10 keeps growing ever-longer. He has nevertheless been promising to stick to the existing fiscal rules set by the current Chancellor Rachel Reeves. It is clear to just about everyone that the numbers don’t add up. Still, never mind.

Andy Haldane, the former chief economist of the Bank of England; Richard Hughes, the former chair of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility; and Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs economist – the three said to be advising Burnham – have apparently suggested that the MP for Makerfield scrap the ‘triple lock’ on the state pension. This is the mechanism by which the state pension rises by the greater of inflation, average earnings, or 2.5 per cent every year. Doing so, he has argued, would make plenty of money suddenly available.

They are certainly right. The long-term projections for the triple lock are catastrophic. Over the next 50 years, according to the OBR, it will add at least £80 billion, measured in today’s money, to the cost of the state pension, and even that may be optimistic. If it were scrapped, the long-term outlook for the public finances would look a lot better. It might even be possible to borrow more now without the bond markets going crazy. It is probably the only real lever that could be pulled right away to pay for all the Burnham administration’s other plans.

The trouble is, there is absolutely no evidence Burnham is the kind of man to make difficult long-term decisions. It has only been a week since he was promising to keep the triple lock as well as give pensioners a completely unnecessary tax break. It is hard to see how he can reverse that position at the moment without making his reputation for flip-flopping even worse.

Burnham clearly says whatever he thinks will get him a few immediate votes. But there is more chance of the new MP moving to Esher and declaring himself the ‘King of Surrey’ than there is of him getting rid of the triple lock. Scrapping it might be the only thing that could make his premiership viable – but it simply isn’t going to happen.