National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

The hon. Gentleman promoted me inadvertently, as I am the shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but I thank him for his vote of confidence. Our point is that today’s tax cut, which we support, must be seen in the context of 13 years of the Conservatives in power: 13 years of economic failure, with 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone and the tax burden on course to be the highest since the second world war. Whatever the Chief Secretary to the Treasury might say, people across Britain are experiencing life very differently from how she paints it.

However welcome the measures in the Bill may be, they come after 25 tax rises in this Parliament alone. The British people will not be fooled. No matter what statistics the Government contrive or the gloss they try to put on their record, people across Britain need ask themselves just one question: do they and their families feel better off now than they did 13 years ago? The answer is a resounding no. At last week’s autumn statement, we learned not only that the tax burden is still on track to be the highest since the war and that inflation has been revised upward across the entire forecast period, but that growth rates have been cut for next year, the year after, and the year after that.

It took some gall for the Chancellor to say that he was delivering an “autumn statement for growth”—comments repeated today by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—since the Office for Budget Responsibility reports that next year’s growth rate has been cut by more than half. Low growth has dogged our country for the past 13 years. The autumn statement makes it clear that the Conservatives still have no plan to get our economy growing as it should. Since 2010, under the Conservatives, GDP growth has been stuck at an average of 1.5% a year, down from 2% in the Labour years before. If the economy had continued to grow for the past 13 years at the rate it grew under Labour, it would be £150 billion larger—the equivalent of £5,000 per household every year.

As we all know, because of that low growth, the Conservatives have had to keep putting up taxes on working people. Low growth and high taxes have made people across Britain worse off. That is the reality of the past 13 years of the Conservatives in power. The Bill’s tax cuts cannot even remotely compensate for the damage they have done to our economy and the living standards of people across Britain.

Although we support today’s tax cut, we know that our country needs economic growth to make working people better off and to get our public services off the floor. That is the plan from Labour. We are the party of fiscal responsibility and of business, with a plan to make working people better off. Come the next election—it cannot come soon enough—people across Britain will look at the Conservatives’ record and the bleak achievements they will claim. In this Parliament, real disposable household incomes will have fallen the furthest, following 20 years of pay stagnation. Real average earnings are not forecast to return to their 2008 peak until 2028. Four million people have been dragged into paying tax, with 3 million more in the higher rate—the biggest hit to income on record. Next year, real-terms income will be 3.5% lower than it was before the pandemic. This the biggest tax-raising Parliament Britain has ever seen.

Whatever the Conservatives say or do, and whichever way they try to twist and turn, reality has caught up with them. We have been here before. We remember the Conservatives promising to cut income tax ahead of the 1997 election. Back then, people decided that it was too little, too late, coming as it did after 22 tax rises in that Parliament. As this Parliament approaches its end, today’s Conservative party is showing itself to be even more divided and desperate than in the late ’90s. As the next election draws nearer and the Conservatives try to cling on to power, the risk grows that they will get more desperate with their promises and more reckless with taxpayers’ money. Britain needs a plan to get the economy growing and make working people better off. That is what Labour is offering and why a general election cannot come soon enough.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am not sure that I have ever heard a more grudging shadow Front Bench speech on measures that the Opposition support. They support them so wholeheartedly today that none of their Back Benchers has shown up to speak to them.

I endorse the measures in the legislation. The Chief Secretary is right to point to the turning point that the UK economy has reached this year, thanks to the steps taken a year ago to ensure that fiscal policy did not cut across the central bank’s aim to reduce inflation to its target. Thanks to that, inflation, which might have been as high as 13% last year, has fallen to 4.6%. That means that today, the earnings of the average UK worker are rising faster than the rate of inflation. We are seeing real earnings growth. That is the turning point that I am talking about.

The shadow Minister and the Chief Secretary both talked about the choices that the Chancellor could make on this occasion. In the evidence that the Treasury Committee took this week on the autumn statement, we saw the clear impact of the Chancellor’s choices on two long-standing challenges for the UK economy: slow productivity growth and the fact that not everyone has returned to work since the pandemic. When we get to the Finance Bill, I will expatiate further on the supply-side measures on the labour market and permanent full expensing, but today I will focus on the national insurance contributions element, which the Office for Budget Responsibility also considered to be a supply-side measure.

In the evidence that we took, we heard from the member of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Professor David Miles, that the choice to go for the national insurance contribution reduction in the autumn statement created a “definite positive” as an incentive to work. The OBR forecast that it will bring close to 100,000 full-time equivalent extra workers back into the workforce. That is so important. Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted in his evidence that, compared with a similar cut in income tax rates, a cut to national insurance is more progressive. It benefits people in work, but only on their earnings up to £50,000. That is important context for the choice that the Chancellor took.

I also welcome the simplification of taxes—a concept our Committee is committed to. Far too many things in our tax system act as disincentives to doing an extra hour of work. There are too many complicated withdrawal rates. The steps taken on class 2 and class 4 contributions represent a simplification of the tax system. Interestingly, we were told in our evidence session that the changes to class 2 and class 4 reduce

“the incentive for people to incorporate to gain a tax advantage.”

We should have a tax system that is broadly neutral on those two things.

Professor Miles told us that he thinks that the national insurance cuts are “unambiguously” a more positive incentive to work. The Office for Budget Responsibility does not see the measures as inflationary. He also said that

“some people at the margin who thought it perhaps was not worth working might now be persuaded to actively try to get a job”,

and that the measures will help retain people in the labour force.

To conclude my short remarks on the narrow measures in the Bill, I wanted to focus on the evidence that we have received on the choice that the Chancellor took on national insurance, and how that is very much focused on the structural challenges that the UK economy faces.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman was quite late in and did not hear the beginning of the right hon. Lady’s speech.

[Priti Patel]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As has been mentioned, the alignment with the tax-free threshold should also help with the future plans to simplify the tax system. We had a bit of a discussion on this last week, but it is important in today’s debate again to raise the prospect of simplifying the tax system—more should be done in that area—by merging income tax and national insurance together. That is why I am disappointed that more Opposition Members are not here to discuss it. Last week, we had a semi-healthy discussion about it. It is out of the scope of this Bill to table an amendment to bring those two taxes together, but I urge those on the Treasury Bench—I would also be happy to work with other colleagues on this—to consider taking that up in advance of the spring Budget. Much more can be done here. Such a move would simplify taxes for the entrepreneurs and self-employed even further. As we know, when we come to the end of the tax year they are constantly having to do all sorts of things to satisfy His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

In 2012, I asked the Treasury a written question on integrating those taxes, and the then Exchequer Secretary replied by stating:

“Since Budget 2011, the Government have engaged extensively with stakeholders to develop options for operational integration of Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions. As many stakeholders have recognised, this is a complex issue with potentially significant implications for employers’ payroll operations. The Government will provide an update on this work later in the autumn. As we have already made clear, this is a long-term reform on which the Government will proceed carefully.”

That was a long time ago—it was 11 years ago. Although this is a complex issue, I maintain that such a move would help to simplify the tax system. I know that the Treasury Committee has looked at this area, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) touched on it today. Such a move would help to make payroll much easier for businesses, and allow them to co-ordinate income and revenue in a much more straightforward way.

Although this next issue may not be directly within the Bill’s scope, it does relate to NICs. I would therefore like to take the opportunity to restate for Treasury Ministers the position on fiscal drag. The OBR forecasts show that a freezing of the NICs thresholds and the income tax thresholds will, relative to consumer prices index inflation, and after taking into account the tax cuts here, bring in an estimated £27 billion in the next fiscal year, 2024-25, with this rising to nearly £45 billion more for the Exchequer in 2028-29. The OBR is clear on that. Ministers know my views: as we go into spring next year, and as the economy grows and more revenues come in, I urge them to look at this area all over again.

This Bill is welcome. It is a positive step in the right direction, along with the entire autumn statement. I commend my colleagues for the work they have done on it. The speed at which the Government are acting to bring forward the benefits of the NI changes and get them into pay packets as early as possible is right; it is commendable and should be supported, as I hope it will be by all colleagues in the House. The Government must continue to look at further steps. We want more economic growth. We are pioneers when it comes to innovation and small business. We need to find other ways to lower taxes so that people can keep more of their earnings and, importantly, we ensure that our economy is match-fit for the future so that it continues to grow.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Nigel Huddleston]

I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. He has given me the opportunity to leap swathes of my speech, because he has put those important points incredibly well.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who is my constituency neighbour and the Chair of the Treasury Committee, highlighted the importance of the autumn statement as a turning point, as articulated by the Chancellor, and the all-important supply-side measures in it that will help spur on business, create employment and generate incremental economic activity. As a result of the spring Budget and the autumn statement, the OBR has said that the economy is likely to be 0.5% larger. When we are talking about an economy of over £2 trillion, that is a huge incremental value to the UK economy.

Unfortunately, the spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), failed to recognise that we have addressed the cost of living to the tune of £100 billion in support. He also forgot that in the autumn statement we had an increase not only in the living wage but in benefits, aligned with inflation; in pensions; and in the local housing allowance rate, to the 30th percentile. That means 1.6 million families will be better off, gaining an average of £800 in support. It is not true to say that there were no cost of living support measures in the autumn statement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) recognised the considerable impact of those measures and the fact that they make a meaningful difference to his constituents. He raised issues about visas and students, which I am happy to discuss with him further.

As always, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) articulated core Conservative values incredibly well. The autumn statement recognised the importance of spending every penny of taxpayers’ money incredibly carefully and responsibly, as well as ensuring that we are there to support people through the tax system wherever we can. She is right to be passionate about small businesses and entrepreneurs. Small Business Saturday takes place this weekend and I am sure many of us will be out supporting small businesses, not only on Saturday but in the run-up to Christmas and beyond.

The Opposition spokespeople peddled so many myths and untruths, I do not know where to start. [Interruption.] We addressed many of them in previous debates, so I will not hear from them. The way they react speaks volumes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The Minister did not mean to say “untruths”, did he?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I take back that comment, Madam Deputy Speaker. There were some presumed facts that require challenge, as we saw earlier in the week. At one point, the shadow Chancellor claimed that the forecasts were going to be £40 billion smaller. The shadow spokes- people know full well, because it is stated by the OBR, that economic growth by the end of the forecast period is higher than it was in the spring forecast. [Interruption.] I am sorry if I have to explain that to Opposition Members—if a number is bigger than the previous one, then that means growth and not decline. We could possibly forgive that mistake if it were not made by the people trying to become the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is extraordinary incompetence—a £55 billion difference is not something we can easily ignore.

As my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury pointed out earlier, we are pleased that the Opposition are supporting the national insurance cuts, but to combine that with their commitments on spending, to the tune of £28 billion, and then claim that there will not be an increase in debt is farcical. It is not true; we know that will happen, and we are seeing the same old Labour. As Margaret Thatcher said:

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

That was true then, and it is true now.

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. The Bill delivers a tax cut for 29 million working people, and I am pleased that it will be getting support from across the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I join the two Front Benchers in saying how deeply sad it is to hear the news that Alistair Darling has died. He was an incredibly well-respected, thoughtful and kind man who was devoted to public service. I know all Members will want us to send their condolences to his family.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Further proceedings on the Bill stood postponed (Order, this day).

National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Bill: Money

King’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided that is attributable to:

(a) reducing the main primary percentage for Class 1 primary national insurance contributions to 10% (and reducing the percentage specified in regulation 131 of the Social Security Contributions Regulations 2001 to 3.85%),

(b) reducing the main Class 4 percentage for Class 4 national insurance contributions to 8% from tax year 2024-25, and

(c) removing the requirement to pay Class 2 national insurance contributions from that tax year.—(Mark Jenkinson.)

Question agreed to.