House of Commons – Dec. 4, 2024 – 56

I beg to move, That this House regrets that increasing the rate of employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs) to 15%, and reducing the per-employee threshold at which employers become liable to pay NICs on employees’ earnings to £5,000, will lead to increased costs for businesses and lower wages for employees, including in particular young people;

will force companies to cut employment, leading to some 130,000 job losses according to Bloomberg Economics;

will increase costs for retailers by £2.3 billion according to the British Retail Consortium, leading to higher prices for consumers;

will create an annual additional bill of £1.4 billion for charitable service providers according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, so they will struggle to maintain support for vulnerable people;

and will increase childcare costs for families;

further regrets that the Government has not published its complete assessment of the effect this policy will have on the public and private sector, or indeed any impact assessment;

and regrets also that, as a result of the Government’s economic policies, GDP forecasts are down, inflation is up and business confidence is down.