Health and Social Care Levy

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I would like to start by giving the UK Government some credit: they are absolute masters of illusion and deflection. Trying to get them to simply answer a question is like pinning jelly to a wall. Their Ministers are astonishingly unperturbed by going out to argue for policies that entirely contradict the cast-iron promises they made when they stood for election. We on the Scottish National party Benches are clear that raising national insurance is a blunt tool to fund social care, likely to disproportionately hit young people and lower earners. Our SNP amendment (a) would have forced the UK Tory Government to come clean on the distributional impact of this policy.

We would love to be able to amend the motion more broadly, but as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, we have limitations on our ability to do so this afternoon, which is hugely frustrating. Our amendment therefore covers the impact by age, because we know that young people will be affected worst; by income, because we know that national insurance is regressive and will hammer lower earners; by wealth, because those with unearned incomes stand to be the big winners and the key political motive here appears to be for the Tories to bail out their well-heeled voters against losing their inheritance; and by place of residence, because this is a UK tax for an English policy crisis and, within England, the Resolution Foundation is clear that this policy will benefit the south-east the most. It is of no surprise to me that the UK Tory Government’s national insurance hike and the “back of a fag packet” plan announced yesterday are already drawing criticism from all sides—from The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, the Cabinet and Back Benchers.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a number of very important points. An anonymous member of the Cabinet is quoted in The Daily Telegraph as being very critical of this policy:

“If you get all your income from investments and property you don’t pay a penny but if you work your guts out for minimum wage you get clobbered.”

Can my hon. Friend hazard a guess as to what the Tories have against taxing unearned income?

[Alison Thewliss]

I would be very curious to know why that is. I was going to read out that very quote, because even three former Conservative leaders, including a former Prime Minister and three more former Chancellors, have spoken out against this move. To complete the quote that my hon. and learned Friend mentioned, this person, an anonymous member of the Conservative party, said:

“Putting up National Insurance would be morally, economically and politically wrong.”

They went on to say:

“After all that’s happened in the last 18 months they can’t seriously be thinking about a tax raid on supermarket workers and nurses so the children of Surrey homeowners can receive bigger inheritances.”

Well, yes indeed they are.