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Campaigners have branded the freezing of the personal allowance threshold a “scandal” amid demands for Andy Burnham to ditch the “sneaky tax” at the Budget. Dennis Reed, director of the over-60s group Silver Voices, called on the Prime Minister to raise the tax-free amount by at least £1,000 to stop pensioners on modest incomes being dragged into paying tax.

He took the demands to Downing Street on Tuesday, where he handed in a petition on the issue with 275,000 signatures. The personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021 in a major stealth tax and is set to remain at that level until 2031. Speaking outside No 10, Mr Reed said: “We’re here because we’re handing in a big mass petition to get the Government in the Budget next week to raise the lower tax threshold as a major contribution to the cost-of-living crisis.

“It’s a real scandal, the fact that the personal allowance has been frozen for the last five years. It’s meant that people have lost £3,500, which is a really big hit in your living standards over the last five years.

“The personal allowance would now be over £16,000 if the threshold hadn’t been frozen. So, it really is a scandal. It’s a sneaky tax. It’s an iniquitous tax, and it’s a regressive tax because it hits the lower paid most of all.

“We want Andy Burnham to actually come forward with his promise. He said he was going to look at the lower tax threshold in his Makerfield by-election.

“He’s had a few months now to look at it. So we want to know the answer, Andy. Are you going to raise the lower tax threshold, yes or no? Are you going to do something for the cost-of-living crisis, something meaningful for the cost-of-living crisis, yes or no? We want to know next week in the Budget what you’re going to do about the lower tax threshold.”

The full new state pension is set to exceed the personal allowance from next April because of the increases under the triple lock, with which payments rise by whichever is highest out of average earnings, inflation and 2.5%.

Former chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed last year that OAPs whose only income is the state pension would not have to pay income tax but no details have been set out yet on how this will work.

The Prime Minister raised hopes that he could unfreeze the personal allowance shortly after entering 10 Downing Street in July. Mr Burnham had said the issue was “lodged in my mind” after it was the thing he heard most on the doorstep while campaigning in the Makerfield by-election.

But he later insisted there was no immediate commitment to increase the tax-free amount, but that it would be looked at in the Budget.

Mr Reed said he was “reasonably hopeful” that the Prime Minister will act on the issue. When asked about the chances of Mr Burnham raising the tax threshold, Mr Reed said: “There is a possibility because he’s really laid himself on the line on this one … I’m reasonably hopeful. I hope he does because if not, people will think ‘well, what’s it all about? What’s the change?’”

It comes as the Daily Express will stage a protest on October 28 on Parliament Square, in Westminster, at 11am ahead of Chancellor John Healey’s maiden Budget. Readers supportive of the paper’s crusade to Save Our Pension Triple Lock are invited to join the demonstration, in partnership with Silver Voices.