Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the 1.5 per cent increase in employer national insurance contributions on care home operators; and whether he has plans to exempt the care sector from that increase.

The increase to Employer National Insurance contributions by 1.25 percentage points is expected to raise £975 million per year from employers carrying out health and social care activities. The Government cannot break this down to show the cost to care home operators.

The Government has made the tough but responsible choice to increase taxes to fund a significant increase in permanent spending on the NHS and social care. There are no plans to exempt the care sector from the National Insurance increase.

On the 7 September the Government announced that we would be investing an additional £5.4 billion over the next three years using the funds raised by the levy to begin a comprehensive programme of reform for adult social care. Additionally, local authorities can make use of over £1 billion of additional resource specifically for social care in 2022-23. This includes £636 million more into the Social Care Grant, including funding for equalisation against the 1 per cent Adult Social Care (ASC) precept, an inflationary uplift to the improved Better Care Fund to support integrated working with the NHS, and a 1 per cent ASC precept and deferred flexibilities from last year's settlement.