Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend for what she has just said and for her contribution to yesterday’s debate on the Budget. I am sure she is right in what she says about the Taylor review and about finding the right way through the dilemma of continuing to encourage enterprise and self-employment where it is legitimate while, on the other hand, removing the opportunity for arbitrage and abuse, which in some cases is taking place at the moment. I am grateful for her support.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, a very famous operator in the field of social security and taxation once said, “When the evidence and the facts change, I change my mind”. That is very wise advice for the Government. What concerns me in all this is that the Government have locked themselves for the whole of the Parliament into what I would regard as a rash, ill-judged manifesto commitment. A black hole—not the first one—now appears in our public finances and will have to be remedied over time, as the Minister has already acknowledged. The question for us now is: as people on benefits, housing benefit and low incomes have been hurt, who will be hurt by whatever measures emerge to fill this black hole?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand the noble Lord’s concern but, as I said when I repeated the Statement, in his Autumn Budget the Chancellor will outline the measures that he will take to make good the revenue lost by this decision. Therefore, the noble Lord will have to wait until the Autumn Statement for the answer to his question, but I know that the Chancellor will take on board his concern for the lower paid and the less well off as he addresses those issues.