Andrew Dismore

PRIME minister (and would-be president, based on the style of the Conservative Party campaign) Theresa May has turned her back on Barnet and Camden’s pensioners.

Her proposed abolition of the triple lock means pensioners will not see even the small increases in state pension they have come to expect.

Means-testing the winter fuel payment means many who are entitled to it will miss out in the bureaucracy and stigma of the means test.

After the Conservatives’ cuts of £4.6billion from social care budgets, which have resulted in many elderly and frail people who need help having to go without, Mrs May’s new wheeze to make pensioners pay huge amounts with no maximum limit for their care, whether in their own home or in residential care, by selling off their homes is unfair and especially so for London pensioners.

The cost of care here is higher than in the rest of the country and higher house prices means greater sums will be taken from pensioners; a scheme which ignores the findings of the independent commission set up by the Conservative government to find a solution to long-term care costs, chaired by Sir Andrew Dilnot, who has heavily criticised Mrs May’s scheme.

Labour will maintain the triple lock to make sure pensioners get the increase they deserve. Labour will keep the universal winter fuel payment, so no one loses out.

And Labour will place a maximum limit on lifetime personal contributions to care costs, raise the asset threshold below which people are entitled to state support, and provide free end-of-life care.