It is such a shame that politics gets in the way of governments doing the right thing. Take the commitment, made in 2010 by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition administration, to raising the state pension annually by whichever measure is the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent – the dreaded triple lock. There is no longer a financial or moral justification for keeping the triple lock, but scrapping it represents a political risk that no Prime Minister since has felt like taking.

For Andy Burnham, the matter has become critical. He is faced with a gaping hole in the country’s finances caused by decades of living beyond our means, and ending the triple lock, pegging pensions to inflation instead, will – according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) – save the Exchequer around £3.3bn in just two years.

The BCC, representing about 65,000 British businesses, has made its submission to the Chancellor, John Healey, ahead of his forthcoming Budget, and recommends that savings from ending the triple lock should be put towards cutting employers’ national insurance contributions on workers aged 21 to 24.

This goes straight to the moral argument around the triple lock, which, it should be remembered, was only introduced to rebuild the value of the state pension after decades in which it had fallen relative to earnings – not necessarily as a permanent settlement. In the 16 years since, it has become something of a holy writ, and, with an ageing population, its cost to the nation has increased at the same time that other unforeseen pressures – like Covid, for instance – have hit the public finances. The BCC’s submission, therefore, raises the crucial question: when it’s not possible to help everyone in society, should we focus on the young or the old?

I am of pensionable age myself, but I firmly believe that the next, post-Covid, cohort of workers has so much to contend with, from high living costs and stagnant wages to the technological challenges and greater job insecurity, that they should definitely be where this government trains its sights. Simply put, why should a 25-year-old worker who can’t afford to buy a house and faces huge cost of living challenges finance a guarantee that their generation will not enjoy?

The inescapable fact is that most of us are living longer and collecting pensions for longer. Someone has to pay for that, and the bill goes to people of working age, through higher taxes, lower spending on public services or the inflationary effects of more government borrowing.

This cannot be fair, and while I am not running the argument that pensioners are too well-off, the triple lock is a blunt instrument, offering the same protection to a pensioner on the poverty line as it does to one with a large, mortgage-free home and a private pension pot. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has maintained that the triple lock disproportionately benefits wealthier pensioners; ending this arrangement, it is argued, would free money to help those pensioners who are actually struggling financially.

But here, of course, we run into the serious political conundrum. Pensioners are disproportionately likely to vote, and, unsurprisingly, the triple lock is a very popular measure with them. Not only that, but the Burnham government, led by a man who says he’s not afraid of taking difficult decisions, has pledged to stick to both the fiscal rules and the 2024 Labour manifesto, which promises to keep the triple lock.

So you don’t need to be pollster John Curtice to work out that, if Burnham agrees with the moral and financial case for ending the triple lock, he will have to call a general election. And then, if ending the triple lock is part of his promise, he may lose that election. The political courage required, and the communication challenge it presents, to pull off this particular piece of levelling up, may define Burnham’s prime ministerial career.

I’m not the only one who hopes he will grasp this most prickly of nettles. Figures across the political and business spectrum, from former Conservative pensions minister Baroness Coffey to the influential economist Lord Jim O’Neill, plus, now, the BCC, have all come out in recent days to urge a rethink on our pension arrangements. Lord O’Neill said that he hoped this government would “take credible action to deal with the excesses of the triple lock”.

And so. If Burnham is to become the Prime Minister some of us believe he can be, he must take a long, hard look at himself and choose social justice over political convenience.