A TOP adviser to Andy Burnham has issued a stark warning on the state pension, calling the triple lock “unsustainable”.
Andy Haldane, the former senior Bank of England economist now advising the likely next prime minister, asked if now was the time to scrap the triple lock.
In an interview with City AM, the current head of the British Chambers of Commerce said that the “the fiscal arithmetic doesn’t lie” as he argued for the controversial change.
Just before the Makerfield by-election which propelled him back to the Commons and almost certainly into Downing Street, Burnham ruled out scrapping the triple lock, which requires that the state pension rises every year by the rate of inflation, wage growth or by 2.5%, whichever is highest.
Haldane said: “I don’t know when the moment will come politically, I don’t know when the political will can be summoned, to tackle this, but I think the vast majority of people would say it does need tackling, and given our strained fiscal times.”
The triple lock was brought in by then-chancellor George Osborne during the Coalition government in 2011 and is estimated by the public finances watchdog to cost three times as much as was expected when it was introduced.
Haldane said there was scope for reform of the policy under a Burnham government because the debate around the triple lock had “shifted” in recent times with former PM Tony Blair and ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt calling for it to be binned.
Burnham has performed U-turns on a number of big issues in recent weeks.
He walked back comments he had made suggesting that Waspi women were entitled to "recompense" for missing out on the state pension until later in life due to rushed changes.
And the former Greater Manchester mayor this week ditched his plans to "tear up" the Barnett Formula, which is used to calculate how the Scottish Parliament is funded.
Burnham’s team were approached for comment.
