Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
Main Page: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness McIntosh of Pickering's debates with the Leader of the House
(3 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberI said at the outset that only a broad-based tax such as VAT, income tax or NICs could raise the sums needed for this kind of investment, and we believe that NICs is the fairest way to do that.
My Lords, historically, no Government have imposed a percentage increase on national insurance contributions because it hits the very people—the NHS and local government—who are delivering health and social care. For what reason have the Government changed the position on this?
As I have said, the reason we went to NICs is that we believe that is the fairest, as the higher your earnings, the more you contribute; I gave some figures to show that. As I said, the highest-earning 14% of people will pay around half of revenues, and 6.2 million of the lowest earners will be kept out of the levy.