Warning Burnham’s social care plan could cost far more than he says, and take ‘decades’ to implement – UK politics live

There is increasing speculation that Andy Burnham might announce plans to scrap the pensions triple lock as one means of funding his social care reforms. Yesterday Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the PM under Keir Starmer, told the BBC that this was “an option the government should consider alongside others”. According to reports in the Daily Telegraph and in the i, other Labour figures are also privately arguing this would be a good idea. One “insider” told the i that getting rid of the triple lock but making social care free could be sold as “taking [something] away when you’re in your ۶۰s but giving it back when you’re ۸۰”.

But Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, and a former Treasury official, told the Today programme this morning that getting rid of the triple lock would not raise enough to fund the sort of proposal Burnham has in mind any time soon.

She said:

The triple lock is a policy that has the value of pensions growing by more than earnings. That’s particularly unsustainable. But obviously taking it away would hurt the very generation who would benefit from free social care.

I don’t think one would be enough to pay for the other. For example, in this forecast period, we think cancelling the triple lock would save about £۸۰۰m, maybe a bit less.

The numbers for the triple lock are very big in the long run. They’re not enough to deliver a free social care system in five or ۱۰ years’ time.

Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has been doing the morning interview round for Labour. Mostly he has been talking about the suspected bomb plot at RAF Fairford. Yohannes Lowe is covering all the developments on that story on a seperate live blog.

Andy Burnham’s plans to reform social care could cost far more than he is claiming and take “many decades” to be implemented, a leading expert has claimed.

Andrew Dilnot told the Today programme this morning that he was “puzzled” by some of what Burnham said yesterday, and he implied that he was unconvinced by what Burnham was offering.

Dilnot, a former chair of the UK Statistics Authority, is one of the nation’s leading economists and chaired a commission on social care reform for David Cameron’s government in ۲۰۱۰. Although ministers were initially positive about his plan to cap the amount individuals can be required to pay for their social care, successive governments were worried about the cost and the plan was never implemented.

In his interview, Dilnot said that he did not understand why Burnham told the BBC yesterday that his plan would cost less than £۱۸bn a year when what he seemed to be describing – an NHS-style care service, with care free at the point of delivery – would cost a lot more.

Dilnot said he was “puzzled” by Burnham’s answer to the £۱۸bn question because “if we were to make social care free in the same way that health care is largely free, then I think we will be talking about an amount of money well in excess of £۱۸bn.”

Dilnot said that making the English social care system similar to Scotland’s – where personal care is free, but where people who need to go into a care home can still face huge costs for the accommodation element of their care – might cost roughly half of the £۱۸bn mentioned. But that was not what Burnham seemed to be proposing, Dilnot said. He explained:

[Burnham] did talk about making social care free, and what he implied was that he wanted social care to be completely free.

And that’s not at all the case in Scotland, where although the policy is called free personal care, we still have exactly the problem that Mr Burnham himself has talked about of people needing residential care faced with very substantial bills.

And so I think what he’s really talking about probably is social care that looks very like the NHS, that will be entirely free.

What he hasn’t described is how he would raise the funds that he would need for that, and that would be a very substantial sum of money.

Dilnot said that, when Burnham gave a big speech on social care just after becoming PM, he left the impression there could be legislation before the next election.

After yesterday, Dilnot said, reform seems further away. He explained:

It sounds as though there’ll be some more details [of the plans] in the prime minister’s speech tomorrow at his party conference, but I think even that will continue to remain vague.

I think what we learned yesterday was that, if anything, change is now further away than had been implied or suggested.

Dilnot also said the full reform proposed by Burnham could take decades.

I also think that there was an indication in what [Burnham] said that he’s imagining something that could take many years, even many decades before it came to fruition.

So they are now, I suspect, looking at ways of beginning a move in this direction without imagining they can get there very quickly.

Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, has accused John Healey of offering the Labour conference “reheated announcements” in his speech later.

Referring to Labour briefing overnight that three new floating docks will go ahead on the Clyde (see ۷.۵۴am), Griffith said:

These are more reheated announcements without clarity on where the money is coming from. Additional docks were announced months ago in the defence investment plan, which still has a £۴.۷bn black hole.

John Healey resigned warning that Labour’s failure to fund defence was making Britain unsafe. Now that he is chancellor, he still won’t fund the ۳% target he walked out over.

Labour are running scared of making the tough choices needed to pay for Britain’s defence. All they can offer is reannounced docks and more hot air from Healey.

Good morning. John Healey, the chancellor, is the main speaker at the Labour conference. He was a surprise appointment to replace Rachel Reeves, he is unveiling his budget four weeks on Wednesday, and some of the pre-briefing suggests when the budget does come, it will be a relatively low-key affair, with a lot of decisions postponed until the spending review next year. And so we are definitely not expecting huge announcements at lunchtime today.

But there will be some striking language. Healey is going to promise a “new age of industrialisation”.

According to the overnight briefing from Labour, he will explain that in these terms.

My politics were shaped by the industrial heartlands of South Yorkshire. Today, on the site of the Orgreave pit, is Rotherham’s Advanced Manufacturing Park. Our coal mines are not coming back. But this is how Britain’s industrial past is being remade now for the modern world. This is the new age of industrialisation. A new confidence in Britain.

And he will also announce that the government is commissioning “three new floating docks for the Royal Navy’s submarine service at HM Naval Base Clyde” to provide maintenance for nuclear submarines.

Known as Programme Euston, plans for the new docks were first set out in ۲۰۲۳ and are expected to upgrade Faslane’s facilities for the next generation of British submarines, the Press Association reports. The Ministry of Defence has previously said they are expected to come into service in the early ۲۰۳۰s, and the docks form part of a wider £۱۵bn upgrade programme for the Royal Navy’s shipyards.

Here is the agenda for the day.

۱۰am: The Labour conference opens. The first main speaker is Wes Streeting, the defence secretary.

۱۰.۳۰am: Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, addresses the conference.

۱۱.۱۰am: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, speaks at the start of a debate on workers’ rights and reindustrialisation.

Noon: John Healey, the chancellor, gives his speech.

۲pm: Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, addresses the conference, in a debate covering transport and insourcing.

۲.۳۰pm: Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, speaks at an IPPR fringe event. Other cabinet ministers speaking at fringe events include Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, at a Think Labour event; Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, at an IPPR event; Streeting at a BAE event; and Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, recording a What’s Left? podcast.

After ۳.۲۰pm: Alex Norris, the justice secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, speak at the conference in a debate covering crime.

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