Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, was asked how much cash the Prime Minister would raise by ditching the policy in April 2030. The wage growth lock will be replaced by one tracking average earnings growth…
Miller said on BBC Breakfast:
“It depends on how prices and earnings pan out over the next decades. Under a certain set of assumptions, it is possible that by the end of the next decade you could be saving £15 billion a year.
It’s also possible that you could save absolutely nothing, or a bigger sum. So it’s very uncertain. It’s also worth saying that £15 billion in today’s prices is more like £11b billion, so not quite as exciting sounding.
And it’s also worth saying that you should probably think of this as being an unfunded thing… There was an unfunded commitment in the triple lock that’s now being got rid of, and if the Government wants to pay for a new commitment, it will need to find some new money to do that.”
She also identified the scale of tax rises required to pay for Burnham’s social care proposals, telling Times Radio:
“It would depend on how big a service he’s imagining. So obviously, you could do a small service or a very big comprehensive service. But if you want to find something, you know, in the sort of 15 billion plus range, then you’re going to have to be looking at putting up income tax by, you know, one, two, three percentage points to be getting the sort of tens of billions of numbers.”
Income tax up by 3% – and that’s only for one policy…
Burnham said in his main conference speech: “For the historic victory he achieved for us, I am here to say: thank you, Keir.”