I am a pensioner and a Liberal Democrat. I believe in freedom, fairness and the responsibility we share to ensure that everyone can live with dignity. Those convictions are why I want our party to speak more clearly about pensions and social care.
My concern is not with Ed Davey’s commitment or compassion. It is with whether our leadership is giving people enough substance to understand the choices ahead.
As someone who served as a Southwark councillor for twelve years, including working on health and social care scrutiny, I know how closely these issues are connected. A pension provides an income. Social care helps someone wash, dress, eat safely and remain in their own home. For many older people, both are essential to independence.
Yet the political debate too often treats them separately. We hear assurances about protecting pensioners, while families struggle to arrange care, meet its costs or provide it themselves.
I want Ed Davey to explain how these commitments fit together. What should pensioners expect beyond 2030? What would a properly funded social care system provide? How would we pay for it, and how would we protect people on low incomes?
These are questions a party seeking to govern should be prepared to answer.
I am worried about my own pension, but I am also worried about the condition of social care. I do not want a debate that assumes older people care only about the amount entering their bank accounts. We also care about what happens when we become frail, when a partner needs support, or when our children must reduce their working hours to look after us.
A pension increase can bring welcome relief. But if someone’s care costs rise, or suitable help cannot be found, that increase alone cannot give them security.
This does not mean pensioners should be asked to accept less in exchange for a vague promise of better care. People with modest incomes need dependable protection. Any proposed change must explain who would be affected, how, and what safeguards would apply.
Equally, we should be willing to discuss whether those with greater resources can contribute more fairly. Older people are not one uniform group. A person living on a small pension with no savings is in a different position from someone with substantial income and assets. Fairness requires us to recognise that difference without setting generations against each other.
Our leadership should make the case for social care as a shared public priority. Good care matters to the person receiving it, to relatives and unpaid carers, and to the wider community. It should not depend on whether a family has the money, time or strength to fill every gap.
My criticism of Ed Davey is therefore a constructive one: compassion must be accompanied by a clear account of what we would do, what it would cost and which choices we would make.
Warm words can communicate our values. They cannot, on their own, show voters how those values would shape a government.
I would welcome an honest discussion led by Ed, even if some of the choices were difficult. We should trust people enough to explain the trade-offs and listen to their concerns. Pensioners deserve that respect, as do younger people who will help fund the system and may one day depend on it.
As a Liberal Democrat, I want our party to offer more than reassurance. I want a credible promise of dignity: enough income to live on, care when it is needed, and support for those who provide it.
That is the substance our liberal values should deliver.
* Maria Linforth-Hall is a former Southwark Councillor 2014-26
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11 Comments
“Pensioners deserve that respect, as do younger people who will help fund the system and may one day depend on it.”
Yes, just as current pensioners funded the system so that the previous generation of pensioners could benefit. Each generation, while working, funds the generation ahead of them – that’s how the system works.
Yes that’s why the triple lock should be retained.
We need to return to the radical liberalism of the 1909 Lloyd George Peoples Budget. Fund decent pensions and social care through wealth taxes.
The triple lock is unsustainable but that doesn’t mean the richest generation to ever live will be poor. It means pensioners who need help and don’t have assets or income will be helped via benefits. Too many children go hungry in failing schools in the country to keep funding retirees winter vacations and 5 bedroom heating bills. It’s not liberal at all to give to the rich on the backs of the working poor.
Might a well explained, transparent tax system which does not significantly favour the wealthy and the rentiers, get to the real root of this matter?
Might the increase of revenue from a thoroughly progressive tax system accelerate long term growth, when applied to structural supply side deficiences, such as fixing the N H S, upgrading infrastructures, securing decently-liveable pensions and expanding the U K skills base? (FromAI Mode)
David Warren 15th Oct ’26 – 5:44pm:
Fund decent pensions and social care through wealth taxes.
Taxes change people’s behaviour. Tax something and you get less of it. Taxing wealth makes us all poorer. The UK already has the OECD’s highest taxes on wealth. This Labour government has driven out record numbers of wealthy people. Chasing out even more will further increase the tax burden on those left. Where will future risk capital come from? The UK is good at start-ups, but they struggle to get scale-up investment, hence many stay small or sell out to US buyers.
Taxes don’t just change the behaviour of those who pay them now, but also those who aspire to be liable to do so in the future. Talented young entrepreneurs and professionals are leaving the UK in droves; there are now 250,000 in Dubai alone.
‘Britain loses over half its billionaire wealth in two years’ [October 2026]:
https://archive.is/UOok0
The triple lock is sustainable and should be retained. There are many pensioners who die of cold each year as they are unable to afford to heat their homes. I am sure Age UK can give you more information. You also miss the point that older people need more help with age related health issues and daily living. Benefits in themselves do not cover the extra costs of food, energy, bills etc. in this cost of living crisis. Neither is it liberal to accept and support pensioner poverty and two wrongs don’t make a right
My memory from the time of the introduction of the triple lock was in response to the reduction of the state pension’s buying power in preceding years and its low level in comparison with comparable EU nations (however, such international comparisons are complex needing to take into account many factors for a baseline that applies).
Therefore the policy should be that once the pension has recovered to the level that we seek in the (valid) international comparison then the lock should be changed to e.g. a double lock to keep up with inflation and earnings. A mathematically easier way to get to that target quickly, if we are not there yet, is to give a one-off numerical rise and then lock to inflation and average earnings.
@Jeff clearly presents the case of the rich against them paying taxes at all. It is , of course, complete and utter bullshit, but it is pushed every day by the media mouthpieces of the mega rich. In a fair society, if you earn a lot more than anyone else, your contribution to the general good should be higher, because you can afford it. That’s the argument of ‘Patriotic Millionaires’.
It’s the rich who want to abolish the triple lock, because it might mean they have to pay more. The rich getting richer on the backs of pensioners.
That anyone in the LibDems should even be contemplating this is beyond belief. The UK has the worst pensions in Europe, except for Greece. The triple lock, whilst it has improved things a little still expects those on the old state pension, who have no other income to live on £12500 a year or £250 a week. Those on the new state pension have a little more.
How many of those who are arguing that the triple lock is unaffordable would manage on that level of income? A vanishlingly small number I should think.
Stop supporting the arguments of the ultra rich and start thinking about those pensioners who contributed all their working lives and now have to exist on such a small pension.
What @MickTaylor said!
Yes agree with both above. And I’m far more persuaded by the leader of the Unite Union, Sharon Graham. As a trade union leader she recognises that ordinary pensioners are not wealthy and strongly opposes or weakening the triple lock for the reasons already outlined.