00:01The elderly population continues to rise and more families face the cost of care as well
00:08as planning for retirement. The state pension triple lock sets out how much payments rise
00:14each year. Prime Minister Andy Burnham says changing it would help fund a national care
00:20service in England, linking pension security with how care is paid for.
00:26To start with social care the idea that sort of you end your life needing sort of permanent
00:33care is one of course that nobody sort of wants to be in but quite clearly if you get
00:40so ill that your family or you and your family cannot look after yourself then of course it
00:45becomes sort of something that you have to do. The real difficulty is that if you have
00:49any sort of resources like that you know your home and money in the bank then of course that
00:54can be eaten up sort of very quickly down to sort of to whatever the limit is at a particular
00:58time but effectively it leaves nothing so you know obviously the partner can sort of stay
01:03in the house perhaps there's a wife until of course they die. So there is a sort of a lot
01:08of resentment that around this issue. We hear sort of the figure so it would require about
01:1218 billion but of course that's just a guesstimate.
01:14The triple lock began in 2011. Each year the state pension rises by whichever is highest
01:22inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. It has helped protect pensioners but can push the pension
01:30higher relative to wages over time. Population change adds pressure. The Office for National
01:37Statistics projects the number of people of pensionable age will rise from 12.4 million in
01:432024 to 14.2 million by 2034. The Office for Budget Responsibility's long-term baseline
01:52using the current lock projects state pension spending rising from 5% to around 9% of national
02:00income by 2075. Now of course the question might be asked why is social care become such a big issue?
02:09I think a lot of it's got to do with the fact we are becoming an aged population. Our sort
02:14of life
02:14expectancy has increased certainly compared to our parents and grandparents
02:18generation who spent a lot of time in sort of hard jobs or hard occupations which of
02:24course took its toll on the health and indeed you know we look at this will be
02:27state pension age it was set at 65 for men and used to be 60 for women I know it's
02:31now been equalized and of course it's it's now 66 going up to 67 but that was set
02:37deliberately because of course you're the number of years that you're going to survive
02:39off that was fairly limited so of course as we become a more aged population we have this problem.
02:46Burnham says the existing triple lock will stay until April 2030. After that pensions would rise
02:52by at least inflation or 2.5% with more added when needed to maintain their value against average earnings.
03:01The government says removing the old ratchet could save 15 billion pounds a year
03:06by the late 2030s rising to 50 billion by 2050.
03:12So it's a really complicated sort of set of conundrum if I may sort of put it like that
03:17for the current chancellor but there is undoubtedly a sort of a zeitgeist you know sort of a prevailing
03:22wisdom that something needs to be done because you know if we sort of extend right in the future
03:27in say 100 years you know all of the taxation would be sort of paying for the pension well quite
03:32clearly that's ridiculous and it does need to stop and I've heard it so said that maybe what we
03:37mean rather than having sort of an absolute figure we sort of set the state pension as being something
03:42like 30% of the sort of the average wage which at the moment is 30,000 so it would
03:47be yeah it's
03:48probably there or thereabouts and as long as you keep it at that then of course it sort of may
03:53work
03:53but of course there is a sort of still argument you had you know should it be sort of more
03:57or less
03:58and of course anything that you do is going to affect that or that is likely to affect older people
04:02is problematic for politicians because of course as we all know when you come to any sort of election
04:08older people have a greater propensity to vote than younger people and maybe this this might be an
04:14issue that will spark off interest in younger people because of course unless they sort of vote for the
04:19sort of the parties of the future or you know all those who are going to sort of make a
04:22future better
04:22for them then of course nothing will change so the difficulty of this one is I think there is a
04:27sort of a
04:28view it needs to be sort of dealt with but as I say there may be a sort of a
04:33political punch that
04:34will come back to hit the Labour Party and Andy Burnham in particular but of course social care is a
04:39sort of a problem that many families have to sort of to grapple with and of course when that happens
04:44that can be sort of absolutely distressing and hugely expensive. The plan keeps pension rises
04:52guaranteed but changes how the lock works from April 2030. The government says the savings will help
04:58build England's national care service. The remaining question is how that service will be funded and
05:04delivered with recommendations expected from Baroness Casey's commission in summer 2027.
