Labour to test Tories with snap debate on national insurance rise
Labour will spring a snap debate on cancelling the increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) on Tuesday, warning it will cost the average private sector worker £410 a year, as the opposition tries to exploit Tory divisions.
In new analysis of sluggish wages and the national insurance rise, planned for April, Labour said private sector employees would face a “double whammy”, with employers also passing on the cost of their increased NICs.
The rise, billed as a health and social care levy, was designed to raise £12bn to tackle the post-Covid NHS backlog, as well as funding a longer-term overhaul of social care.
Critics including the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation have said the rise, set in legislation in the autumn, is disproportionately loaded on to younger and lower-paid workers compared with a rise in income tax.
The vote at Labour’s opposition day debate on Tuesday is intended to expose growing Tory unease over the cost of living crisis, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Among those who have called for the NICs rise to be delayed are the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory chair of the Treasury select committee, Mel Stride, the foreign affairs select committee chair, Tom Tugendhat, and the former Europe minister David Frost.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the UK had been“left exposed to soaring costs and spiralling inflation because of choices the Conservatives have made, and now they’re going to make the cost of living crisis worse, hitting workers with a double whammy from an unfair, terribly timed tax rise”.
She added: “The Conservatives are trapping us in a high-tax, low-growth cycle. They must get behind Labour’s motion tomorrow and halt this
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