Andy Burnham will signal the end of the pensions triple lock in his speech at the Labour Party conference, The Telegraph understands.
The Prime Minister will say that the triple lock does not work in its current form and suggest that it should be reviewed in the party’s next manifesto.
His comments on Tuesday will mark a major departure from Sir Keir Starmer’s 2024 manifesto, which committed to keeping the policy.
The triple lock, which requires the state pension to rise in line with inflation, wages or 2.5 per cent every year, has been in place since 2010.
Mr Burnham is under pressure to scrap the policy to fund his social care plans, which would create a multibillion-pound, NHS-style system that would be free at the point of use, after the next election.
Senior government sources told The Telegraph the Prime Minister would signal his willingness to review the policy, but would stop short of a pledge to scrap it altogether.
Mr Burnham’s conference speech – his first as Labour Party leader – will set out his agenda before John Healey’s Budget on Oct 28.
NHS-style social care system
His offer to Labour members is expected to refer to a new “National Care Service”. On Sunday, Mr Burnham said he would fight the next election on the pledge to introduce the NHS-style social care system.
He told the BBC: “It will be a system of that kind, so everyone contributes, everyone’s covered. But not precisely, necessarily, in the same way that we currently pay for the NHS.”
Mr Burnham acknowledged that his plan would probably require higher taxes, pointing to “commitments in the manifesto which would make it hard to do it in this parliament” and funding decisions that could be “difficult or unpopular”.
On Monday, a senior government source suggested that scrapping the triple lock could form part of a “grand bargain” with pensioners, who would receive free social care in exchange for lower pension payments.
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