National Insurance: Charity Sector

Debate between Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Baroness Twycross

Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be well aware of the Secretary of State for Health’s commitment to hospices, including supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care and £26 million to support children and young people’s hospices. I am not playing down how hard it is going to be for organisations to find the additional revenue, but not all organisations will find that their NICs bill increases.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register as a trustee of several charities. Can the Minister say what discussions she has had with her Secretary of State about the presumed job losses there will be in the sector and the lack of delivery caused by this increase in national insurance contributions?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I think we need not to talk ourselves into a corner on this, where we assume that things are going to be as dire as they might be. In response to the question put to my noble friend Lady Taylor, who is here today, let me say that we would not have made the choice unless we had to, but there is a need to protect small businesses and charities, which is why we have more than doubled the employment allowance to £10,500 and extended it to all eligible employers. The OBR expects about 250,000 employers to gain from the changes and a considerable number to see no change at all, so more than half of all businesses, including charities, will not see the rise that the noble Lord suggests will happen.