Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Steve Baker

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. For young people who have perhaps struggled through this year, who have graduated and who are going out into the world of work, it is a real hammer blow to their prospects.

Many families are already facing a historic £1,040 cut to their annual incomes and are staring down the barrel of impending cuts to universal credit and working tax credit. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has described the new levy as adding “insult to injury”. The New Economics Foundation has calculated that 2.5 million working households will be affected by the £20 a week cut to universal credit and the increase in national insurance. On average, they will lose out by £1,290 in the next financial year. Working households are doing their very best to put food on the table and support their children, and this cruel UK Tory Government caw the legs from under them.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

rose—

[Alison Thewliss]

If the hon. Gentleman can explain why that is fair to the families who have been working so hard, I will be glad to give way.

[Mr Baker]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has popped out to the Vote Office and picked up the distributional analysis that the Government have published, which shows the impact across the deciles of income in this country: it just does not bear out what she is saying. I encourage anybody out there to pick up that analysis and have a look.

[Alison Thewliss]

I have seen a different analysis from the New Economics Foundation; I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at it, because it gives a very different picture from the one that the Government are presenting today, which is why we need more analysis of the policy before the Government go forward with it.

The policy will also have an impact on our recovery from the pandemic. Businesses, which have weathered such a challenging year, have spoken out against it in the strongest terms. The Federation of Small Businesses has called the national insurance hike

“anti-job, anti-small business, anti-start up”,

pointing out that the increase to national insurance will

“stifle recruitment, investment and efforts to upskill and improve productivity in the years ahead.”