Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Monica Harding and James Murray

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

20. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the planned increase in employer national insurance contributions on economic growth.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (James Murray)]

The Government have taken difficult decisions to repair the public finances, fund public services and restore economic stability. The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that the employer national insurance contribution changes

“will reduce the level of potential output by 0.1 per cent at the forecast horizon”.

It also predicts that growth will pick up next year and that living standards will rise faster during this Parliament than during the last, and in the long term it expects the autumn Budget policies, if sustained, to increase the size of the economy permanently.

[Monica Harding]

My constituent Alison runs Stepping Stones nursery school, which has been operating in my constituency for 30 years, offering wraparound care to busy families. The increase in employers’ national insurance contributions alone will cost it £16,000 a year and it is still struggling with an increase in utility costs, while other nurseries in the area are also struggling and, indeed, closing. Headmasters, a hairdresser in Walton, is struggling with £15,000 of extra costs, owing primarily to this tax rise. Can the Minister explain to businesses in Esher and Walton how the Government’s national insurance policy will deliver growth or higher living standards, given that it seems to be doing neither?