Draft Social Security (Contributions) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2022

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 General Committees

[Lucy Frazer]

I will conclude my remarks, because I have now answered that question twice.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend has given way. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I have listened with attention to hon. Members’ interesting questions—although so far only from the Opposition Benches, so I thought we should hear from Conservative Members as well. The Minister mentioned that there are only about 1,000 of these people and that they are a cohort who do not think that they will be excluded, therefore there is no need to write to them. Is not the reverse at least as likely to be the case: that they did think that they were excluded? Indeed, MWRR stands for married women’s reduced rate, and that group of people were eligible for it in a way that others were not, so if they were to think anything, if they were to get up in the morning and think, “Does this thing that I have just heard about on Radio 5 affect me or not?”, their first reaction would surely be that it did not, because they know that they are in an exempt class. However, that is not my question—although the Minister is welcome to comment. Given that there are only 1,000 of them, does she know who they all are? Does she have the names and addresses of the women?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Those women are not excluded; they just pay a lower rate, so they are included in the NICs scheme. I do not think that they would think that they are excluded. There is nothing to suggest that they were excluded, or that a particular category of women, men or anybody were excluded, so I do not think they will believe they were excluded. Payroll systems are set to include them, and the Government have said on gov.uk that the system is coming in, so the expectation is that they will be included.

As for who the women are, they will be identifiable through various payroll systems, and payroll operators will have to ensure they pay the right amount. If we did not bring in the draft measure, it would be difficult, because we would then have to instruct payroll operators to change their systems, because they are now set up to include that category of women, so it would be more administratively difficult to take them out than to include them.

I should also highlight that this measure is for only a year, because they will be automatically included next year in any event, when the levy appears on people’s payroll.

All that we are doing with this measure is ensuring that this group of women, who were excluded through an inadvertent error, are now included, as we had always intended.