National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and for supporting his local hospice. He is an experienced parliamentarian; he knows that this is not simple and that the provider landscape is complicated. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), large private equity companies own many social care providers. We want to ensure that any additional funding from the Budget goes exactly where it needs to be: supporting patients—our constituents—where they live and need care. That is why, over the next few months, we will continue to talk to providers in the usual way about the allocation of those funds.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Since the Budget, I have been contacted by GPs, care providers and charities in my constituency, all expressing concern about the impact of the rise in employer NICs on their ability to serve the most vulnerable in our community. Will the Minister reconsider the change by finding a way to exempt the charitable sector in the same way as the public sector? I have written to Ministers and tabled early-day motions on this issue. Will she take this opportunity to assure the charitable sector that it will not be impacted by the measure?

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Lady tempts me to make specific commitments, which I am not prepared to do, as I am sure she understands. She is right that people are expressing concerns about some of these decisions. That is because they are in such a precarious situation as a result of what we have inherited from the past 14 years. As the Prime Minister and the rest of the Government have been clear throughout the election and afterwards, we have a 10-year plan because it will take a long time to fix the foundations and build up the sector to make it more resilient and sustain it for the future. We want to fix those foundations, and we will talk closely with everyone affected over the coming months, but this will take a long time. Those providers are precarious because of the mess that we inherited.