Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support people struggling to pay their bills given the increased cost of living.

The Government announced further policies at Autumn Statement 2023 to support the most vulnerable: From 1 April 2024, the Government is increasing the NLW by 9.8% for 2.7 million low paid workers. Local Housing Allowance rates will rise to the 30th percentile of local market rents in April 2024 for 1.6 million households. The government will also uprate all working age benefits in full by September 2023 CPI of 6.7%, benefitting 5.5 million households in 2024-25. This brings the total support over 2022-2025 to help households with the high cost of living to £104 billion – an average of £3,700 per UK household.

As part of the Government’s long-term plan to grow the economy and reform the tax system, employees will see their main National Insurance Contribution (NICs) rate cut from 12% to 10% from January 2024 onwards, and the main rate of Class 4 NICs for the self-employed will be reduced from 9% to 8% from April 2024. This is a tax cut worth over £9bn per year, the largest ever cut to employee and self-employed National Insurance.