Andy Burnham pledges care service election plan as triple lock funding question remains open

Prime Minister Andy Burnham says Labour will put a plan for a universal care service in England to voters at the next general election. The proposal could reshape how people receive and pay for social care, but he has not set out a funding plan or announced any change to the state pension triple lock.

Speaking as Labour’s conference began in Liverpool, Burnham described a service that would be free at the point of use for everyone in England and funded by ‘everybody’, according to the Guardian. He said he would bring forward proposals and seek public endorsement before introducing the system in the following Parliament.

A commitment before a funding plan

Burnham acknowledged that the public finances constrain what he can promise. ‘The challenge in the public finances is real. So it has to be done carefully, without putting extra strain on the public purse. But I will bring forward proposals,’ he told the Guardian. He said he would take time to work out how the service could be funded fairly.

He rejected a suggested £18bn annual cost for free social care, telling the BBC, ‘It’s not that high,’ according to the Guardian’s report. He did not give an alternative settled figure in that account. The size of the service, who would qualify for what support and its financing are therefore central questions for the proposals he has promised.

Our earlier report on Burnham’s care election plan covers the pledge as it emerged. The current question is how Labour would turn that pledge into a funded service, and whether any existing spending commitment would be changed to pay for it.

What the triple lock does

The triple lock governs annual increases to the state pension. As the BBC explains, the pension rises each April by whichever is highest: earnings growth, inflation or 2.5%. The BBC says the current pledge is due to expire at the end of this Parliament, making the next election manifesto a consequential point for its future.

The Guardian reported that revisiting the lock was one possible connection between pension policy and care funding, with government insiders declining to rule it out for the future. That is a reported possibility, not a proposal Burnham has made. His stated commitment concerns developing the care plan and asking voters to endorse it.

Asked earlier this month about changing the lock in the next Parliament, Chancellor John Healey said the government ‘must bring down welfare costs’, according to the BBC. The answer did not specify a pension policy. It leaves open the political question of whether Labour would renew, revise or end the triple lock after the current Parliament.

The scale depends on the design

An independent model shows why a care service’s specification matters to its price. The Women’s Budget Group estimates that its own universal entitlement floor would cost about £61bn a year in second-quarter 2026 prices. A full uncapped service in the same analysis would cost about £104bn. Neither figure is an official estimate of Burnham’s proposal, whose detailed design has not been set out.

For the lower-cost version, the group proposes redirecting about £25bn from existing local-authority social care budgets and raising another £36bn through a levy on earnings. That is the group’s financing design, not a tax plan announced by the government. It illustrates the extent of the choices involved: moving existing budgets, raising new revenue and defining the care entitlement would each require decisions that Burnham has yet to make public.

The group’s model also relies on a decade of pre-funding, with a projected reserve of about £194bn by 2036. For a worker earning £50,000, it estimates a levy starting at about £277 a year and rising to £553 by the modeled launch. Those dates and amounts belong to that model; Burnham has not adopted its timetable or its levy in the reported remarks.

What comes next

The next test is the detail Burnham says he will bring forward: the care people could receive, when a service could begin and how its costs would be met. Until those choices are specified, figures from other care models cannot establish the price of his plan, and discussion of the triple lock cannot establish that he intends to change it. For now, the firm commitment is to develop a proposal and put it to voters at the next general election.