National Insurance Contributions Increase

Debate between Duncan Baker and Anthony Browne

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

I have said many times in this place that I represent the oldest demographic in the entire country. Hon. Members might expect me to say that North Norfolk is beautiful; it is my home and it is where I grew up. People come to live there all their lives, retire there or come back for years and years. If I knock on a door, there are two things that my constituents say they care about. They care about their health, and they recognise that with the dreadful situation we are in, the conflict we are seeing and the shifting of geopolitical plates, we have to have a competent Government looking after the economy. In pretty much any polling across the country, the most important factors that people care about are their health and the economy.

As I said in my intervention on the Chief Secretary, we have spent £450 billion, an eye-watering amount, on safeguarding the jobs and livelihoods of millions and millions of people—working-class, everyday people whose jobs have been saved. As a consequence, we are now in £2.2 trillion or so of debt. I find it staggering that the Opposition think that we can just amble out the other side of a global pandemic and everything will be normal. It simply cannot be, and we must and should be honest about it.

The health and social care levy is needed. We have heard all the statistics that show why: to repair the backlog in elective surgery and repair the social care system that we need in this country. According to reports, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) said, £12 billion a year is needed—a colossal amount of money. We cannot raise £12 billion a year by making savings or cuts to other services that have been ravaged throughout the pandemic that we have just come through.

Social care is a subject that I have spoken about many times in this Chamber—obviously I would, with the demographic I represent. We should not underestimate the herculean efforts of our carers. It is completely right that we hail our nurses through the pandemic. Imagine the care and patience someone needs to be a dementia nurse or a palliative carer. It is about time we fixed that—it is about time we grabbed the nettle and did it. This is a Government who are finally gutsy enough not to be derailed, no matter how difficult the situation. They will not be pushed off track; they will deal with it.

Before I came to the House I was a finance director, and I remember that when automatic enrolment came in, the situation was very similar. The initial levy was 1%, and what was being said then was what is being said now—people would be desperately worried about the cost, they would not pay for it, and they would opt out. What happened? Ninety per cent. of people stayed in the scheme, because they saw the value of what it was doing in the context of the marginal extra amount that they were paying.

The same will happen in this case. No one wants to see tax rises—we all agree on that—but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If we end up funding services properly and taking care of our elderly people properly—and we have the opportunity now to reform the social care sector and fund the NHS in this way—the 1.25% about which Members are so concerned today will dissipate, and for that reason we have to be entirely sensible.

[Anthony Browne]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for the need to increase spending on health and social care in the long run. Does he share my concern about the fact that, while proposing a cut in national insurance, Labour Members have no answer to the question of how they would fund ongoing health and social care services, and the fact that cutting national insurance would inevitably lead to their cutting those as well?