After a weekend of torrid speculation, the PM has confirmed government plans to raise National Insurance for working people and businesses to pay for increased ring-fenced funding for the NHS and social care, breaking his party’s promise of no tax rises made at the last election
This is wrong on so many levels. Not only is the amount be raised pathetically inadequate – with NHS bosses telling the Guardian they are braced for an increase of just £5 billion next year, having argued in detail why a minimum £10bn is required to meet the increased costs of Covid and the need to bring down waiting times and reduce waiting lists – but national insurance is the most regressive way to raise tax income.
Rather than raise a combination of capital gains tax, corporation tax, or tax private wealth, financial speculation or tax-dodging corporations, this tax hike hits the poorest.
Full story in The Lowdown, 6 September 2021