𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Box-fresh prime minister Andy Burnham has revealed some good news for Britain’s 13.2 million pensioners just hours after getting his hands on the keys to Number 10. The former Manchester mayor successfully ousted Sir Keir Starmer from the top job in politics and took over running the country on Monday.

But critics argued Mr Burnham, whose politics are viewed as far-Left by some, had not set out his plans for the nation despite being the PM-elect since Sir Keir announced he was resigning on June 22. Mr Burnham did not officially take the reins until this week, but refused to answer questions from the media about what his policies would be.

A key topic for pensioners was if the new PM would keep the so-called Triple Lock, the system which guarantees that the state pension goes up each year in line with either inflation, wage increases or 2.5% – whichever is the highest.

Now it’s been revealed that Mr Burnham suggested he will keep the lock until the next General Election. He previously told The i Paper removing the instrument, which was a Labour manifesto commitment, would be “very damaging”.

Mr Burnham has appointed former defence secretary John Healey as the new chancellor, who will have to find the money to keep funding pensions in a country where the ageing population is increasing.

But former cabinet minister Liam Byrne, once chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, previously argued the lock should be scrapped. In June, he said there should be “a gradual move from the triple lock’s ratchet effect toward a more stable uprating mechanism”.

And Lord Jim O’Neill, an economist close to Mr Burnham, also said he was trying to “convince” the new PM the system should be ditched.

After Mr Burnham suggested he would keep the current increase system for pensioners, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned that debt levels could spiral to three times the size of the economy if the status quo was kept.

The OBR warned in its latest annual fiscal risks and sustainability report that the policy measure would ramp up government spending in the decades ahead.

Under its baseline scenario, state pension spending is projected to rise from 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) to about 9% by 2075-2076, and is therefore a big driver of increased pressure on overall public spending.

This is partly driven by there being more older people in the population, while the triple lock is estimated to account for about a third of this rise, the OBR said.

Volatile inflation and earnings growth mean the triple lock has been more costly than initially expected when the measure was introduced in 2012.

The OBR estimates that the triple lock will have added about £15.5 billion to state pension spending each year by 2029-2030 – up from the £5.2 billion a year that was originally costed.

“It is certainly a substantial pressure on public spending over the longer term and is making a very significant contribution to that upward pressure on spending,” said Tom Josephs of the OBR.

If the state pension rises with earnings rather than the triple lock, then it would reduce pressure on spending by about 2% of GDP, the OBR estimated in its modelling for alternative options.