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The favourite to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has been told to put the debate around keeping the state pension triple lock to bed. The new MP for Makerfield has promised to stick by the gaurantee, which ensures that the state pension increases annually by the highest of average weekly earnings, inflation or 2.5%, for this parliament. But the director of Silver Voices, an independent, individual membership organisation for senior citizens, Dennis Reed, wants him to go further. He told Mr Burnham to “put this to bed”. Mr Reed added: “The speculation is feeding into a lot of worry from older people about what’s going to happen with the triple lock. Tomorrow, there’s going to be an energy price increase, so people are really worried about the cost of living still.”

He said that a lot of the people who have been “fuelling the speculation” that the lock could be scrapped are the former Mayor of Greater Manchester’s “closest advisors”. Mr Reed added: “Lord O’Neill keeps coming out with saying that the triple lock needs to go and it’s unsustainable, et cetera.” Lord O’Neill, a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, has said the government must ” deal with welfare reform and take on the triple lock”.

Mr Reed said: “Andy Holdane, who used to work for the Bank of England, another one of his advisors, has also come out against the triple lock.”

Mr Haldane has said the triple lock is “unsustainable”.

Mr Reed added: “Yes, I would like to believe what Andy Burnham says, that he’s going to stick with the manifesto and protect the triple lock, at least for this Parliament.

“But if that is the case, he needs to call in his advisors. He needs to tell them very clearly that that may be their personal view, but it’s not going to happen. And unless he does that, there will be a lot of doubt as to whether he really intends to stick to his promise.

“He could easily put out the message. It would take him 10 seconds to put out the message to his advisors that it’s not going to happen, and that would end the speculation.”

If Mr Burnham did not do this, Mr Reed suggested, the country would see “a winter fuel payment scenario, where the start of the new regime, just like the start of the Starmer regime, is actually marred by an anti-pensioner viewpoint, which is being put around everywhere, which will disillusion all the older people in the country”.

Mr Reed said Mr Bunrham should announce that the triple lock will be protected in the next parliament, as well as this parliament.

He added: “We would be quite happy to engage in discussions with him about the future of the state pension, because our view is that the state pension is far too low, And if the state pension was of a similar level, as it is in other developed countries, there would probably be no need for the triple lock.

“But as it is, the triple lock is a necessity.

Suggesting that the triple lock is unaffordable is “nonsense”, Mr Reed said.

He added: “All this is political choices, and it just so happens that people are picking out the state pension and pensioners, as to the reasons why we’re in the economic malaise that we’re in, which is obviously not the case at all.

“There are billions of pounds of public spending. It’s a political choice, whether you actually put that money into giving older people a decent retirement in dignity, or you put it somewhere else.”

When asked where he would divert money from in order to secure the triple lock, Mr Reed said: “If you look around, there are plenty of big profits being made by internet giants and banks and energy companies.

“They seem to be sort of like rolling in cash. So, it wears a bit thin when it’s said that an older person on £185 a week state pension ought to be propping up the economy, when there’s all those billions washing around somewhere else.”