Blair demands welfare cuts and end of ‘unsustainable’ pension triple lock

Labor must cut Britain’s ballooning welfare bill and end the triple lock guarantee on pensions if the stagnant UK economy is to grow again, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said the increase in the number of people receiving disability benefits was unsustainable and should be cut as a priority.

He also said the state’s triple lock on pensions, in which pension payments rise in line with inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent, was no longer affordable.

He also launched a furious attack on the current Labor government’s clean energy programme, warning it was too expensive.

His warning followed a major response to a 5,600-word article in which he launched a scathing attack on Keir Starmer’s government and the Labor Party, and called for a return to the “radical centre” if he were to seek a second term.

Their concerns about the rising welfare bill come after Sir Keir’s government was forced to abandon plans to cut the welfare budget by £5bn a year in a major Labor backstep last summer.

Sir Tony told the BBC’s Today program on Wednesday morning: “We’re about to get to a situation where before the pandemic, just five or six years ago, we had 2.8 million people of working age on disability and incapacity benefits. By the end of this decade we’ll have almost 5 million.” [on incapacity benefits].

“You can’t continue to have a situation where you spend more on incapacity and disability benefits than you spend on defense.”

Referring to Labour’s welfare revolt last year, he added: “I know all these changes are really hard, so I think whoever undertakes them is going to have a really hard time.”

Turning to the pensions bill, he added: “It’s like the triple lock on pensions, you look at the figures and you look at where the UK will be in 20-30 years if they continue this policy, it’s not affordable.

“At some point you have to be able to stand up and have an honest debate with the public, which means you can say, ‘bottom line, look, we’re probably taxing people too much right now, we’re spending too much, we’re borrowing too much.’

“If we continue like this, we will create a situation where we cannot grow economically because we have put the burden on our economy that affects growth.”

He also called for the private sector to become more involved in healthcare using AI.

He also warned that politics needed to move beyond “traditional left/right politics” and suggested he agreed with the Conservatives on some policies.

To talk Times RadioSir Tony also reiterated his demands for a major change in energy policy.

He said: “Taxes are too high for working people and I think we need to change some of the things we spend money on, particularly identifying the huge amount of money we spend on Net Zero, which I don’t think is the right priority for the country at the moment.”

He said he “advised Keir Starmer to tear it apart”. [energy secretary] Ed Miliband’s clean energy programme.”

He emphasized that he is “not a climate change denier”, but also pointed out that China, India and the USA “prioritize cheap energy” while increasing electricity supply.

Ministers were unable to say whether Sir Tony had issued a warning to the prime minister and Downing Street ahead of the major intervention, which comes at a time when the Labor leadership is about to change.

Treasury secretary Torsten Bell said the article did not deal with the reality of Britain and its policies in the 2020s.

In a post on social network BlueSky, Mr Bell said Sir Tony was wrong about the Government’s net zero plans. He also said calls to increase VAT during a cost-of-living crisis were wrong and that the article did not understand why taxes were rising.

Mr Bell said: “The difficulty with this paper is that it doesn’t have a project that even remotely fits the time and place we live in. Saying ‘AI’ is not the same as making a plan for Britain.

“This is an impressive attempt to engage with some of the great forces that in many ways shape our future. But as Tony Blair would probably be the first to admit, governing requires a much bolder engagement with the world as it is, not as you would prefer it to be.”

Sir Tony also took aim at Andy Burnham over the Greater Manchester mayor’s suggestion that 40 years of neo-liberalism was the problem.

“Is he really saying that nothing done by the Thatcher government or New Labor was right?” Sir Tony has said he is expected to be the man to challenge Sir Keir for the Labor leadership if he wins the upcoming Makerfield by-election.

But Mr Burnham’s supporters on the left of the party have already opposed Mr Tony’s intervention.

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis wrote: “Whether it is Tony Blair’s interventions, the bond market response or the doomsday warning of privatized utilities, the pattern is the same.

“When anyone proposes progressive change, those with wealth and power step back. Whether it’s Andy Burnham or [Green leader] Progressives need to understand what we are facing and how we can beat it,” Zack Polanski said.

He continued: “Burnham needs a state that can pay for big-budget, social democratic projects: council houses, clean energy, public transport, water, skills and resilience. These cannot be wished away. They require large-scale public investment.”

“This is where Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules become more than an accounting tool. Simply put, they are self-imposed limits on borrowing. They are political choices, not laws of nature. But they matter because they set the limits of what Labor says it can afford.”