Andy Burnham may propose a post-election review of the state pension triple lock

Andy Burnham may propose reviewing the state pension triple lock after the next general election, Sky News reported on 28 September, bringing the guarantee into a wider debate over how to pay for social care in England. The reported review is an anticipated proposal for Labour’s next manifesto, not a decision to change pension payments. Sky said the party was understood to retain its 2024 manifesto commitment not to scrap the lock.

The distinction matters to pensioners planning around future income. The triple lock determines the annual increase in the state pension, while Burnham has outlined a universal care service that would be free at the point of use. Neither a replacement pension formula nor a way to fund that service has been announced in the evidence reported so far.

What the triple lock guarantees

Under the triple lock, the state pension rises each April by the highest of three measures: September’s Consumer Prices Index inflation rate, average UK wage growth for the preceding May to July, or 2.5%. The BBC says the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition introduced the mechanism in 2010 to protect the pension’s value against rising prices and the incomes of working people.

The BBC reports that wage growth of 3.9% is likely to set the increase for April 2027. On that basis, it says the full new state pension would rise by £488 a year, to £13,036.40, while the old basic pension would rise by £374.40, to £9,989.20. Those are prospective figures: the government has yet to confirm the increase, which the BBC says may happen in October’s Budget.

Why social care is part of the debate

In a BBC interview reported by The Guardian on 27 September, Burnham said Labour would put his social-care proposals to voters in its next general-election manifesto. He ruled out implementing them before that election, currently due in 2029. The proposed service would be universal and free at the point of use in England, but he did not specify how it would be paid for.

Burnham described a system in which everyone would contribute and everyone would be covered. He said a review was continuing and promised more detail in his Tuesday conference speech. He also said the annual cost of an NHS-style service was lower than a suggested £18 billion, without providing a final estimate. The Guardian reported his warning that reform would have to be handled carefully given the pressure on public finances.

The connection to pensions has so far emerged in reporting about political discussion, rather than in a published funding plan. Sky News reported that Labour MPs had discussed possible changes to the lock at conference fringe events. It said Darren Jones had raised the possibility of considering the expensive guarantee when reallocating money to help older people through social care. Sky also reported differing arguments from Luke Akehurst, who called for scrapping the lock, and Emily Thornberry, who argued that younger people should not bear the cost of a new care service.

Those comments show why a review could become politically contentious: pension increases affect people already receiving the state pension, while any care funding plan would have to decide how costs are shared. They do not establish that Burnham has chosen savings from the triple lock to pay for social care. Sky’s account concerned what he was expected to propose, and the speech itself had not been verified in the reported material.

The cost and the decisions ahead

The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated in its July 2025 fiscal report that the triple lock would add £15.5 billion a year to state-pension spending by 2029–30 compared with increasing pensions in line with earnings alone. That was about three times its initial estimate. The comparison measures the cost of the existing guarantee against one benchmark; it is not a forecast of savings from an announced reform.

The OBR said inflation or the 2.5% minimum, rather than earnings, had determined the increase in eight of the 13 years it examined; the lock was suspended for one year during the pandemic. Its report estimated state-pension spending at about £138 billion, or 5% of GDP, in 2024–25. Its longer-term projections depend on uncertain future inflation and wage growth.

The next concrete details are expected from Burnham’s conference speech and the continuing social-care review described in The Guardian’s report. The questions remain whether Labour will formally propose reviewing the lock, what any alternative increase rule would be, and how a universal care service would be funded. Until those choices are set out, the reported post-election review should not be read as a change to the current guarantee.