I have declared my business interests in the Register of Membersâ Financial Interests.
I welcome the reduction in the tax on jobs. The level of overall taxation in our country is too high. The reason it is so high is primarily the huge expenditure the country, by general agreement, incurred to tackle the covid lockdown. This is why I find the Oppositionâs criticism of this Governmentâs tax record so difficult to grasp. After all, they wanted us to lock down tougher and they wanted us to lock down for longer. While a lot of money was rightly offered by this Government to individuals and companies to replace their lost incomes âcolossal expenditure on a scale we have never seen beforeâLabour wanted to spend more on those causes, as well as wanting the lockdown to go on for so much longer.
What we demonstrated was that if we lock down a country for a year or more, stop a very large number of people earning their livings or livelihoods at all, and close down a large number of companies for the duration and maybe for longer, it is an extremely costly process. Of course, we needed to offset that to prevent a complete collapse in the economy and to sustain some lifestyles for those who otherwise would have no income. So we as a nation have this burden of extra expenditure, which we are now having to tackle by tax levels that are higher than we like.
We are at this very important point where the higher taxes are all in placeâsome of them are doing their job, and some of them will disappoint because higher tax rates do not always deliver the extra revenue that Treasury and OBR planners seem to think they willâand the Government are rightly saying, from the autumn statement through this Budget and on to future fiscal events, as they are now called, that we want to get back to getting the level of taxation and the burden of the rates down. It does not mean that we want to reduce the amount of taxationâindeed, the Government, understandably, want to collect a lot more taxation, as do the Oppositionâbut the fundamental policy debate is about how best to do that, and it is surely right that we are going to have a more prosperous economy and more public expenditure can be afforded if we have tax levels that promote growth, particularly if we reduce the taxation that is otherwise a big burden on work, on enterprise and innovation, and on small companies and the self-employed.
I am delighted that the self-employed have been included in the national insurance cuts in both the autumn statement and this Budget, but I still think the Government need to reform or push back the changes they made to IR35. We have lost 800,000 self-employed over the covid period. Some of that is because of the damage the covid lockdown has done, but some of it is deliberate tax policy in telling people that they cannot be self-employed, or so undermining the credibility of their status as self-employed in the eyes of others that they do not get the contracts they used to get from businesses that are nervous about the tax issue.
I urge my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to find time to look again at the second part of the self-employment package. I welcome the national insurance part, but I think we need to look at IR35, because we need that extra capacity. It would be good to get back some or all of those 800,000, and to add many new onesâyounger onesâto that crucial army, because I am sure all Members in the House, being honest, would agree that the self-employed make such a valuable contribution in our constituencies.
Does my right hon. Friend share my view that over the decades we have seen such a fall or drop-off in individuals starting their own business, younger people in particular, because of these concerns about the tax burden, how regulated it is and how difficult it is? By dealing with the whole long-standing issue of IR35, we could open up a new marketplace and encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs and small business leaders to come in and really help to grow the economy.
I largely agree with my right hon. Friend, but if we look at the numbers, I think the fall-off was from 2020 to 2024. Prior to that, with good Conservative policies and lower taxes, we were growing the self-employed army very noticeably, and it was
making a very important contribution to general growth and the way all our local communities are serviced. It is so often self-employed people who allow us to make personal contact in a way that large companies do not seem to want any more. They are the people who turn up in the evening or at the weekend, if necessary, to get work done, and they are the people who wrestle with the increasingly impossible streets created by Labour and Liberal Democrat councils, which make it more difficult for them to get their vans around.
Does the right hon. Member not understand that perhaps the other reason for the decline in the self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises is the growth of large businesses or large corporations that push them out of the marketplace and that monopolise and dominate? That is a big part of it, and it is a massive part of how our economy has developed over the last 30 or 40 years.
No, I do not think that is the main point. I think the two main points are the ones I have madeâthe covid lockdown and the tax regime affecting the ability to set oneself up. I will meet the hon. Member a little of the way, because I do think that the 2021 reforms in particular put companies off dealing with the self-employed, and the self-employed often need business from other companies, as well as directly from the public, and that has been a problem. If he and his party are seriously interested, they should look at the 2017 and 2021 reforms, which I think they supported, to understand how they have backfired. That is a good example of the OBR and the Treasury thinking that they can get more money out of the self-employed by forcing more of them to be employed but ending up with a far less successful economy with far fewer people working.
It is an absolute pleasure to listen to my right hon. Friend. I want to reinforce his point about IR35 so that our colleagues on the Government Front Bench are clear about how important this is. He talked about how Labour in the past supported those measures, but does he share my concern that perhaps Labour has now recognised that those changes to IR35 have backfired and that it would be disastrous for the Conservative party to go into the next election not having made those changes while the Labour party is offering to do so?
I will not join my hon. Friend in suggesting that it could be disastrous to go into the electionâI hope that, when we get to the election, it will be looking rather better. But I do agree that it would be great to have sorted out the IR35 taxation mess before we get to the electionâafter all, there could still be many months of happy Conservative Government ahead if that is the Governmentâs wishâas that would be a much better outcome. Failing that, it would be good to put it in the manifesto, but the self-employed would be quite right to say to the Conservatives, âIf you have now got to the point of putting it in the manifesto because you think it needs changing, why didnât you just fix it?â
My right hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. He is talking about the self-employed, and in Southend and Leigh-on-Sea more than 98% of my businesses are small or medium-sizedâin fact, the vast majority are micro. Does he, like me, welcome the raising of the VAT threshold in the Budget? Does he think that over time it would be welcome to continue moving that threshold, which is such a brake on the growth of small businesses? It is a brilliant thing that we have done, but could we take that further?
My first request of Chancellors in recent Budgets has been that there should be a sizeable increase in the VAT threshold. I opened the bidding at taking it up to ÂŁ250,000, because I think we should want get on with these things, and we should want to allow the self-employed to take on their first one or two employees and get their business to a certain scale before this colossal bureaucratic burden comes down upon them. I have not yet persuaded my hon. Friends in the Treasury. I am pleased that Chancellors have moved from saying, âNo, we donât want to do that at all,â to saying, âIt can now be done.â But if the Government are to do it, they should get on with it, mean it, and look as if it is going to make a real impact.
Five thousand pounds is not much. Lots of people get their business to around ÂŁ75,000 to ÂŁ80,000âI have met them in my constituency, as I am sure have most Members in theirsâand then they say, âIâll have a month off,â or, âIâll close the B&B for more of the off-season period,â or, âI wonât take on any more contracts, because I really donât want all that hassle.â They will say, âIâm just a self-employed plumberââor caterer or whateverââand Iâm good at what I do. I donât want to become a VAT expert and I donât want to have to spend a fortune on consultants to take me through this rigmarole of trying to keep the books straight on VAT.â I think we would benefit greatly from allowing that flexibility. The Bill helps, because it does reduce self-employed national insurance costs, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) said, it would be much greater if we dealt with the VAT threshold at the same time.
I would like to extend the conversation, which the Opposition clearly want to have and the Government need to respond to, about affordable and unaffordable tax cuts. First, I note that the Opposition dub all tax cutsâapart from the odd one they vote forâas unaffordable, whereas any amount of public spending is affordable. That is a strange asymmetry. The truth is that the Budget deficit is a combination of increased spending and reduced taxation, and one needs to look at both sides, which should be treated similarly.
The other thing that the Opposition must understand, from listening carefully to Ministers, is that getting rid of all national insurance employee contributions is just an idea; it is not a pledge and it is not a policy. It is clearly not baked into the next five years of figures. We have the Governmentâs five-year financial plan in the Budget, which sets out in general terms what the levels of tax revenue and overall spending will beâwe await more detail for future years on spending from the public spending review in due courseâand we know what the current feeling is on taxation, because we are just voting that through at the moment, based on the Budget. We know that future Budgets will make changes to taxes.
I am sure that Conservative Budgets will make reductions in taxesâassuming continuity of Conservative Governmentâbut the Government are not promising to take off all this national insurance in one go, or
indeed to make any particular change to national insurance next year or the year after. That is the right position to be in. However, given that there is plenty of time to think this throughâit is not urgent policyâI urge my hon. Friends in the Treasury to set out more of the consideration than the arguments before coming up with a firm pledge or a timetable for implementing a tax cut that they want.
We do need to begin with the contributory principle, which is still the main feature of the national insurance fund as we have it today, relating almost entirely to the state retirement pension. The old contributory benefits for unemployment and sickness have been largely removed from the national insurance fundâthere are only residual, small amounts leftâand now come out of general taxation and are voted on in the normal way. The contributory fund is primarily for the pension, which is reflected in the fact that everyone in receipt of a state retirement pensionâor in expectation of one when they get to the relevant ageâwill have their pension based on their contribution record.
It is also true that Parliament over the years has amended how one qualifies for those contribution recordsâin some circumstances one can be at home and qualify for deemed contribution, which is all good and fairâbut it is still very much a contribution-based system. If we suddenly went away from such a system, we would need to answer the question: how do we settle eligibility for state pension? Many of my constituents would not think it a good idea if we invited in migrant workers in their 60s to do two or three yearsâ work here, having settled here quite legally, and then said, âYou can have a full state pension.â They would feel that was not quite what people had in mind, because all previous generations have had to be here and work for many years to gain that entitlement. So there would be issues of fairness.
If the Governmentâs proposition is only that they would quite like to get rid of all employee contributions, I suppose we could keep the contributory principle by proxy, because people would have an employer contribution record, which I guess modern computers could divulge in a form that made a proxy for the eligibility of that person for a pension. However, it would still leave a hole in the national insurance accounts, because with just employer revenue we would have less national insurance revenue coming in than pension going out, so there would need to be technical adjustments or the abolition of the fund and some other reassurance mechanism that people would get their entitlements for the state pension, however those new entitlements were calculated.
This is a complicated area. I have been around this policy area on several occasions in the past for various leaders, Chancellors and shadow Chancellors, and I have always concluded that it would not be a good idea to try to merge the whole of the national insurance taxation system with the whole of the income tax system. I still think there is some merit in keeping the contributory principle. It now mainly relates to the pension, which is probably what one settles for, given how much other benefits have gone up and how one could not put all that extra burden on additional national insurance contributions.
I therefore urge the Government to ask themselves questions about the timetable, affordability, wisdom and, above all, what they wish to do with the national
insurance system as a whole, the contributory principleâwhich still means a lot, particularly to older users of the systemâand what a more modern system might look like. That is Green Paper and policy discussion territory, and it is invited as part of this debate because the Opposition have tabled amendments to try to tease some of these matters out. We cannot settle this today, however; we need a lot of documentation and research to update some of the numbers and complexities, which I remember poring over in the past, so we can see how this might work.
So, it is good news that we are getting a tax cut, and good news that we can have some more tax cuts to come, but I ask the Government please not only to think about cutting national insurance, on which they have done a big and a good job, but to think about some of the other taxes, such as the VAT threshold and IR35, and such as taxes on energy where we are still completely uncompetitive in this country because energy taxation is so high, relative to China and the United States of America, let alone relative to our European competitorsâthey tend to have higher energy prices but we are still uncompetitive against them.
So we need to look at all of that, and when we are looking at future Budgets we need to work away at finding more headroom. I am very pleased that this national insurance cut is effectively allowed under Office for Budget Responsibility rules because the Government have seized the initiative on the productivity decline, which has been very sizeable over the covid period in the public services, and the Government are putting back around ÂŁ20 billion of lost productivity in future years. That is a modest target given the scale of the decline, and it is another reason why the public finances have been thrown into disarray by covid: we did not merely have all the extra costs during the covid period, but we now have ongoing considerable extra cost to run our public services because we cannot even get them back up to the levels of productivity they had hit in 2019 before the covid crisis. We need to look at other ways of finding headroom. Productivity is a good mine for finding headroom so we can improve the quality and cut the cost of what we deliver in the public sector.
I still think the Bank of England should be stopped from selling its colossal bond portfolio at huge losses and sending the bill to the taxpayer. That is unsupportable and the fact that taxpayers and the Treasury have had to find ÂŁ34 billion year to date to cover the whole range of Bank of England losses, which include capital losses on the bonds, is a sign of how out of control this is. We need to stop that kind of thing. It would also be very helpful in getting us out of this technical recession, because the monetary policy has shifted from being massively too expansionary and inflationary, as it was during the covid period, when some of us warned about the way the Bank carried on for too long with printing money and buying bonds. I was very happy with the first tranches because it was essential to offset, but the last tranche was over the top. The Bank has now lurched to being too tough and has therefore created a technical recession that we need not have had, and if it stopped quantitative tightening bond sales, that would start to ease the markets up a bit more and allow us to grow a bit more rapidly and therefore generate more tax revenue.
So I hope there is some food for thought here for the Government when they look at their progress so far. The national insurance cuts are good, but they should study the overall reform rather more carefully and think it through and not make it the only kind of tax cuts in the future. There are other tax cuts now that are more urgent and that would grow the economy more quickly, and they would be targeted rather more on enabling more people to work for themselves and more small businesses to grow, and on us having more capacity, particularly in high energy using areas.
March 15, 2024
Too little too late. A collection of pathologists stood round the slab discussing the cause of death, while looking at the array of daggers, and trying to assess the relative contribution and effect they had in bringing the corpse to where it was.
The daggers, labelled VAT, IR35, NI, INCOME TAX all played their part in the death, all because the BOE, OBR and Treasury have little understanding or sympathy for how the self employed and SME bodies actually work. They have about as little understanding as an abattoire worker.
Collectively politicians and the above mentioned government bodies have been living on the seed crop. As long as it continues famine is assured. The realisation only rests in the minds of 100 powerless, out of the 650 responsible. If this ill advised feeding continues after the next election the mortuary slab is the assured outcome. Those 100 and Reform are the only ones speaking for the enlightenment, I hope the electorate increasingly realise it.
March 15, 2024
Great analogy, a bit of gallows humour.
When politicians are calling for tax cuts, but no spending cuts, you know it’s all just posturing.
In the words of our host “We don’t believe you!”
March 15, 2024
Another Conservative MP is stepping down – James Heappey Armed Forces Minister.
Quite a few of them going nowâŠ
March 15, 2024
+many Agricola.
JR, great speech, totally wasted on your party and govt. It does not want to govern but be led by EU. Quangos were meant and designed to implement EU law and regs on the QT, hence no bonfire.
Sunak betrayed the nation to be a vassal state of EU under the EU sell out Windsor agreement. Treacherous just like May. Sunak has stopped UK diverging from EU forcing our country to ant in lockstep and he even imposed EU law into domestic legislation instead of scrapping over 4,000 EU laws. By now the manifesto and overwhelming mandate should be in place to act like a sovereign independent nation for the benefit of its citizens.
Your govt Incapable of making the easiest decisions because the idiot ministers do not possess the intellect or ability to strategically act in our national interest from a conservative perspective.
Election to rid us of the shysters in govt.
March 16, 2024
Yes, he was “disappointed” that the Junta found no extra money for the Armed Services in the Budget – but bunged another ÂŁ6 billion at the bottomless pit of the NHS.
March 20, 2024
Peter Wood – no, cuts to tax RATES often produce more overall revenue.
Our host has to be frequently reminded to talk not of “tax cuts” but of cuts to tax rates – when he stands up in parliament, he often seems to forget this and allows the socialists to control the lexicon of debate.
March 15, 2024
Other daggers Net Zero, the mad energy policy, market rigging in energy, heatpumps, EV cars, the vast size of the unproductive state, vast over regulation of employment, health and safety, planning…
Still some good news it seems Rishi has delayed some heat pump/boiler market rigging (alas only delayed). Heat pump save virtually no CO2 anyway Rishi, This after the vast grid improvements needed and we have no spare low CO2 electricity to drive them from anyway. So they will be driven by Gas that wastes about 60% of the heat at the power station and in transmission! We are governed by idiots, crooks are crony capitalists.
March 15, 2024
+1 Agricola
Excellent analogy.
March 15, 2024
I think the one with the hot barrel gun still pointing at the head ‘was the one that done it!’.
The succession of half-baked leaders witness to the cries of ‘Et tu Brute’ between each knife plunge has culminated in the coup de grĂące.
March 15, 2024
63 seats. (Express estimation.)
That many ???
March 15, 2024
Very well expressed, agricola.
March 15, 2024
This just makes me laugh.
Reform are not going to form the next government.
Have Labour or the SNP promised to raise the income tax threshold? NI has come down a lot since Jul 2022!
Have Labour or the SNP promised to remove VAT from anything, or reduce VAT to 17.5 or 15%?
Council tax is often higher in Labour areas (other than Cities and Wales), and services for niceties are cut.
March 15, 2024
So, atracy, you refuse to vote Reform, and you intend to vote Conservative because of what they âpromiseâ to do, and you therefore intend to ignore the hard factual evidence of 14 years of these Conservatives increasing taxes, enlarging the state and adopting woke anti-conservative policies. Atracy, you deserve everything you are going to get
March 15, 2024
I never said I intend to vote Conservative. I feel very betrayed by my Conservative MP and their vote for Sunak.
We will probably get Labour Reformer. I know very well what people will get with them. Reform are a risk, Ben Habib doesn’t like Lee Anderson, LA called Richard Tice a pound shop Nigel Farage.
I’ve seen upstart parties in action, they fell apart after election, falling out with each other. The truth is with Reform no-one knows what they will get other than a Labour SNP led parliament, its not Labour seats they’re trying to get they want to take down the right too.
March 15, 2024
sorry there should be a comma, after Labour first line.
March 15, 2024
@agricola – Thank you…
March 15, 2024
The Government didn’t need to do an actual practical demonstration of what would happen if you closed the country down. Many could foresee the outcome, without aid of a crystal ball. Who would listen though?
Correct, Starmer would have gone further for longer. Something the Conservatives should remind the public of, alongside the consequences of it.
March 15, 2024
Apropos National Insurance. I am in favour of Employers NI being scrapped. They can increase wages by the same amount but the full burden of the cost should be apparent to the employee whom it benefits. Iâm am against all the hidden cost of employment. The employee would be more aware of Government insatiability if he could see the full deductions on his wage slip, and he would demand more from Government as a result. That would put pressure on the Government to get some productivity out of the State/Parasitic sector.
I am not sure that all state employees should not become âself-employedâ and be awarded short term contacts by the state. If they donât perform the contracts dry up. That gets us around the horrors of sacking people which the British are far too weak to undertake.
March 15, 2024
But what they are actually doing is (in effect) putting NI onto everyone pensions and unearned income. By increasing income taxes with fiscal drag and removing Employees NI (not employers). It is another vast tax grab!
March 15, 2024
More smoke and mirrors. The VAT threshold used to go up with inflation each Budget, that stopped in 2017. It would be circa ÂŁ110,000 today if it had continued; more fiscal drag. The average small business has a turnover of circa ÂŁ160,000, a move from ÂŁ85,000 to ÂŁ90,000 will take less than 300,000 extra of the smallest of five million small businesses, (less than 50 employees) out of VAT.
Last time I looked, HMRC reckoned two thirds of the self employed / sole traders should be inside IR 35 as disguised employees. Until NI is recognised as a parallel income tax and income and dividend taxation are synchronised; the mess will continue.
March 15, 2024
They do see the Employer’s NI on the payslip, they don’t care if it’s not them paying, as you say, it would be interesting if the person on ÂŁ30k had the employers NI on top of their salary = ÂŁ32405.34 then the 3% Workplace pension Ers = ÂŁ33,118.14 then saw the whole ÂŁ3118.14 taken out of their bottom line.
March 15, 2024
Employerâs NI is not shown on my payslip though as it is my company I have to pay it. To see how expensive taxes really are think about a loop tax from one employee to employee. If I fix my own car with my labour no tax is due but if I work to earn ÂŁ200 take home after tax. Then circa ÂŁ160 is due in tax and NIx2 before I get the ÂŁ200 then I pay the garage then they pay VAT and the mechanic with his PAYE so he perhaps gets ÂŁ80 take home. One loop the. ÂŁ360 gross earning goes down to ÂŁ80 the government taking ÂŁ280. So unless the mechanic is 2.5 times better than you best to DIY and cut the government out. Or go on the dole and barter. Similar issues with paying for childcare.
March 16, 2024
Most Employers show the Employers NI contribution on the payslips because its how the Employee can see the employer has made the contribution due.
âUnfortunately, a small minority of employers fail to do this. If you are concerned that your employer may not be paying your National Insurance Contributions to HMRC, a low-key way of checking that your contributions are getting through would be to ask for a pension forecast from the Pensions Service. You could check to see if you have been given the right number of yearâs contributions.â
Childcare is going to go up from April 2024, the minimum wage has gone up 10% and the age dropped to 21. There are ratios of nursery nurses to the maximum number of children in their care. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2022-0195/
Most nursery nurses do long hours to wrap around care of the parents hours, 40-45, they will have to shift work them now to keep costs down, in fact it would be cheaper to use two part-time than one full-time (national insurance). ÂŁ23,795 for a 21 year old + Employers NI + Workplace pension, sick set off, + holiday pay cover. Trained nursery nurses will obviously want more than this as per their additional training.
March 17, 2024
Dole as you put it pays nothing. Job seeker’s allowance is about ÂŁ85 per month, which soon disappears paying travel costs to interviews should you actually find a job you might be able to do.
March 15, 2024
I see some of the bureaucrats who rule us are threatening to go on strike if â2 days a week in the officeâ is enforced.
We need legislation which defines âresignationâ as refusing to turn up to work without heath reason for a specified duration.
That would cut the state sector by a vast percentage and those cut would be self-selecting.
March 15, 2024
The more the state extracts for its own nefarious and malicious ends the more economic value it destroys. Tyranny is expensive to finance.
Maybe John instead of focusing upon meaningless issues like National Insurance direct his considerable analytical skills to the danger of a state that has become an existential threat to the very nature of freedom and democracy itself.
The threat comes from WITHIN not without
March 15, 2024
+1
March 15, 2024
Dom, Hope not Hate page 35 has JR as the Radical Right. He has two marks against him, Jacob Rees Mogg four he’s the bad boy of the group, only him and Marco Longhi score 4 negative hits.
March 15, 2024
“War is when your government tells you who the enemy is.Revolution is when you figure it out for yourself.”
March 15, 2024
All the time you were speaking Sir John, the fiddles were playing in the background and “Rome” continues to burn to the ground ….. which appears to be the Not-a-Conservative-Junta’s objective.
March 15, 2024
I would have mentioned intra company transfer visas, national insurance exemption for work visa holders, British passports being handed out just for working here a few years, etc as they are all part of the same problem.
March 15, 2024
The Tory’s record on immigration and their refusal to deal with it is the reason millions will never vote for them again. Illegal immigration, their refusal to turn them around the same day, failure to deport them, refusal to get out of the ECHR. The scams of low wage workers never going home, or limiting to timed contracts. Family reunions only ever in one direction, here. The student scams where its really a backdoor immigration line, known by all but not tackled after 14 years. The consequences of all this is massive. Health has collapsed, building everywhere, taxation through the roof to pay for them, not covid. Then there’s the culture, heritage and dilution of the Nation state, particularly the feeling of extended family, values, beliefs and behaviours in our own cultural boundaries. Then the audacity of the non Equality laws, DIE, ESG to legislate to factually reduce English men to second, third and fourth class citizens in their own former Countries. Sir John, YOUR Government is responsible and you must go, never to return for your betrayal.
March 15, 2024
I think these activities are included in âextremismâ. Certainly throwing NI away is included. What does one do when oneâs PM is defined, by his own Government, as an extremist?
Well, you canât vote to return him for a start, or you are aiding and abetting Extremism – which is illegal.
March 15, 2024
OT John, but I see you are mentioned by name in Hope Not Hate’s State of Hate 2024 report just released. Apparently you are part of the Radical Right that “is a dangerous challenge to Britain’s liberal democracy”. Congratulations !
March 15, 2024
hilarious!
March 15, 2024
@ Roy Grainger
I think that makes the vast majority of the population to be ‘far right extremists’ because we don’t agree with the far left’s ideologies!
March 15, 2024
The problem with revolutionsâŠthey grind awful small.
As I said sometime around Cameron or MayâŠlessons should have been learned from the French Rev.
I see that âConservative Womanâ is also in the cross hairs.
Nothing to do with JRâŠhe is a Thatcherite stranded in a sea of Marxism ( my probably unpopular analysis open to correction)
But this is where appeasement lands us.
And the web has been woven so tight as to strangle and silence us all!
I suppose it is just possible that ever new draconian laws could be imposed to divert attention from âŠmaybeâŠinvestigations of some sort?
March 15, 2024
Lenin:”Revolution arises only out of a situation in which objective changes are accompanied by subjective changes,namely the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislodge) the old government which never,not even in a crisis ‘falls’,if it is not toppled over.”
March 15, 2024
Thanks for sharing that Roy.
“Now, in 2024, it is fair to say that Britain has a fully
fledged Radical Right movement, with one foot inside
the Conservative Party and the other outside.
In May 2023, we witnessed the formation of the
New Conservatives, a Radical Right group inside the
Conservative Party which, in its own words, stood for
âthe realignment of British politicsâ. Led by MPs Danny
Kruger and Miriam Cates, the New Conservatives has
attracted the support of about 30 other MPs, including
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Dame Priti Patel, Sir John
Redwood and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The New Conservatives have called for âlegalâ
immigration to be halved; substantial tax cuts; the
abolition of the workersâ rights we have achieved
whilst in the European Union; preventing young
people who fail their A-Levels from securing loans to
enter Higher Education; banning âgender ideology in
schoolsâ; and giving all parents the right âto oversee
the Sex Education their children receiveâ.
Reply I do not sign up to New Conservative ideas whatever they are
March 15, 2024
I know, it’s good that you now know what these people are spreading about you.
March 15, 2024
Pritti Patel??? She’s responsible for a share of the mass immigration. Even in the article above, she talks of ‘bringing in’ entrepreneur’s (and I bet I know where from). Unless of course it was a slip of the tongue.
March 15, 2024
I hope the House was full so your speech was heard by many MPs and not nearly empty.
Re pensions the pay as you go system in place works, as I understand it, so long as there are enough people working to pay pensions to those that have retired. Over time demographic trends will cause the balance between cash coming in from contributions and cash going out as pensions to turn negative. What then? Like the looming problem with other social security benefits the political class is living in La La land, with their heads in the sand.
March 15, 2024
Re your second sentence, of course, whilst pensions are kept so low, the lowest in our orbit. It will take decades of the triple lock, which looks certain for the chop (it was not even discussed before this government welched on it 2 years ago) to bring it up to anywhere near a decent percentage of the average wage. The answer of course is the fabled ‘growth’ which no party has any idea how to implement. Things just get worse and worse whilst the tax burden is where it is and so many people are on the dole. This is a copy of the heads in the sand approach to our power supply over the last 30 years.
March 15, 2024
‘The reason it is so high is primarily the huge expenditure the country, by general agreement, incurred to tackle the covid lockdown.’
Pushed into general agreement by pseudo science, propagated by charletons, many with pecuniary interests and pressured by the likes of Fauci and Gates. I recommend reading the detailed and fully referenced book, The Real Anthony Fauci by R F Kennedy Jr. to realise the scale of the criminality of the last four years, and many years before that. It is a book packed with hard evidence that should put those two in the dock.
March 15, 2024
Carefully constructed lies to divert attention from the real cause. Blaming covid over and over will not wash. As I understand it, they spent about 400 billion on that (a huge sum of course), but what about the other 1.2 trillion (i.e. 3 times as much) they have incurred over the last 14 years? The interest payments on that alone must be staggering. If they hadn’t had covid to blame, it would be so apparent that that poor management by the Tories is the main or only cause.
March 15, 2024
According to the HMRC, in the tax year ending April 23, 12% of all of my taxes (I don’t know if they mean all taxation or just personal) goes on debt interest payments and 0.6% on payments to the EU, 0.5% on foreign aid. Vast sums and totally wasted due to Tory Government incompetence.
This Tory Government has proven it is is unfit to hold office and if elected again will carry on with the same policies. Einstein’s madness rule applies about doing the same things and expecting a different outcome!
Nut zero, a total scam to control us, based on NO science but models and the life giving 0.04% bogus CO2 plant gas. Just look outside every day, 65 years of same seasonal but varying weather to me.
Mass immigration of all sorts putting them before English people. More non Equality laws and rules to keep us quiet and discriminate against white English men and boys. Promotion of all minorities and types to the higher echelons to ensure same mindset and values but the collapse of health and public service provision. Blairs politicisation of those services and quangos unchallenged by the supporting One Nation Liberal Tory’s.
More woke LGBT xyxz etc prioritisation. More propaganda teachings in our schools to promote THEIR agenda’s and beliefs. More alignment with their beloved EU betrayal Windsor sell-out, EU Environment and Equality legislation. No fishing returned.
More taxation and spending on all things unwanted.
So I’m going to vote for the one Nation Liberal Tory’s again…………………….said no one, anywhere, anytime in the future with a brain, unless they want more of this garbage.
March 15, 2024
That’s a good speech, Sir John.
IR35 or similar provisions were needed to curb abuse of the system, disguised employment, etc. However, periodic review is appropriate, including a check that the cure is not worse than the ailment.
March 15, 2024
If IR35 is a brake – what would stop businesses from just making all workers into self-employed workers, no more national insurance 13.8% savings, no more workplace pension 3% savings (this is going to rise), no more holiday pay 28 days out of 262 10.7%, no more SSP provision and SSP holiday pay, less employer’s liability insurance cover, less payroll administration and the administration and system costs of running paye,
March 15, 2024
a-tracy
Indeed few who are employed on PAYE realise the huge costs of running a business nowadays.
March 15, 2024
I wonder if Labour and this version of the conservative party want to get rid of small businesses that engage PAYE workers, price them out. You are competing with large concerns who sub-contract everything and thus pay less tax, have less insurance cover, no pensions, no sick pay. I know a lot of people now who are paying attention to what is being promised, and wanting to give up.
How is it in any government’s interest not to have someone collecting all the tax for them, taking over all the care and insurance and not having a host of expenses that self-employed people can claim that PAYE workers can’t?
March 15, 2024
This panoply of tax issues, outstanding and partially addressed, reveals that there are no go areas and that they relate mainly to SMEs and the self employed on the one hand-IR35 is the archetypal one – and to providing false equality on the other – work towards non-contributory systems so that recent entrants to the workforce don’t get too upset.
We can feel the direction of LibLabCon on this and we need an alternative to meet your vision. You’re preaching to the deaf and blind in this Parliament.
March 15, 2024
The abolition of the non dom status hasnât generated much comment and it was of course a political move. But economically it is foolish. There will be tens of thousands of wealthy foreigners living in the U.K. who also drive a great deal of ancillary service business who will re-think their plans due to this. And many others not yet here who will change their plans.
If you signal a substantial increase in someoneâs future taxes and they are mobile, then obviously they will leave in large numbers. An even bigger impact, and one not discussed anywhere, is the impact of bringing these people into the UKâs inheritance tax regime. Inheritance tax doesnât exist in most countries, and where it does, with a few exceptions, it is much lower than it is in the U.K. do we really think that a successful entrepreneur or investor is going to make a life here in the U.K. with the threat of confiscation of 40% of his/her wealth on death?
Much more sensible – and Iâd urge Conservative MPs to push for this – would be to increase the annual charge for non-dom status. Give it another name if you want to keep it off the political agenda. But eg ÂŁ100k pa would be reasonable and would ensure we kept many such people in the U.K. we will get far more in tax receipts and other economic benefits that way than if we drive them out.
March 15, 2024
Indeed economic lunacy but then we have had that under these Tories since Cast Iron and Osborne cam on stage. Major, Blair & Cameron disasters too.
March 16, 2024
So you think ‘ There will be tens of thousands of wealthy foreigners living in the U.K’ who will leave ?
March 15, 2024
Getting rid of NI is to make pensions means tested. The problem is that millions of migrants live have l recently arrived and millions of people live on welfare. These people will not be able to afford to live on the level of pension they will receive. So the Government is going to rob people who have paid into their pensions to pay for them.
March 15, 2024
If you pay in, you should get the pension. Means testing is not the way to go. If people (few I would suggest) have more than adequate money, that is their good fortune – it will be taxed, just as it is taxed for the already struggling – this is what needs to be addressed – freezing the tax allowances is cowardly, they just don’t have the guts to admit they are over taxing and wasting money on all kinds of spurious nonsense. Their large increase in salary is of course affordable so they say, which in percentage terms may not look too bad, but when you consider that is roughly half the pension the poorest are expected to live on in one go it looks different. A nice ‘all in it together’ might be to forego the increase this year, but of course that is required to buiild up the pensions of the hundreds who will get the sack this year, so that won’t happen.
March 15, 2024
Won’t they have a pension from where they came from and worked, oh wait! No. We’re seeing the lifeboat we sent out sinking with the weight of numbers because people have been too generous trying to take in everyone.
March 15, 2024
@Javelin – more of the Worlds Old as Criminal boat people will find their way here, free pension, free health whats not to like
March 15, 2024
Free jabs! Must be made mandatory as the boats arrive. The full panoply.
March 16, 2024
including sterilisation?
March 15, 2024
JR, very good. But your party was taxing way before covid. Your speech hides the truth of the high tax big state, high regulated, EU lockstep economy. Therefore to blame all taxation on covid is very specious.
Instead of scrapping EU laws and regulation, Sunak has implemented ECJ judgements through EU law into domestic legislation in stark contrast to what we voted for and what we were promised. Sunak betrayed the nation by his Windsor EU sell out agreement to make sure the UK cannot diverge from EU and be a free sovereign competitive neighbour.
We are reminded in our tax bill itinerary that tax is still taken for EU payments!! I note no heading for illegal immigration? Why?
March 15, 2024
Hope
I can still picture the tv screen, one half, Rishi Sunak exhalting the amazing Windsor Framework and what it meant for the UK …. in the other half, Von der Luyen pronouncing the opposite to be true.
One of them was wrong.
March 15, 2024
JR, very good. But your party was taxing way before covid. Your speech hides the truth of the high tax big state, high regulated, EU lockstep economy. Therefore to blame all taxation on covid is very specious.
Instead of scrapping EU laws and regulation, Sunak has implemented ECJ judgements through EU law into domestic legislation in stark contrast to what we voted for and what we were promised. Sunak betrayed the nation by his Windsor EU sell out agreement to make sure the UK cannot diverge from EU and be a free sovereign competitive neighbour.
We are reminded in our tax bill itinerary that tax is still taken for EU payments!! I note no heading for illegal immigration? Why?
March 15, 2024
Because Blair and Brown signed up billions of ÂŁs worth of PFI agreements. Then, the fake boom-bust. All those people allowed unsecured, non-deposit mortgages suddenly owned up they couldn’t afford them and stopped payments – bang. Recovering from someone spending like Billy-O on your credit card takes years.
I agree about Sunak and the Windsor EU sell out. That was his job.
March 15, 2024
The government want to collect more in taxation. NO we want the state to collect less and get off our backs. Stop this war on motoring and severely cut the welfare budget especially for those who won’t work.
Stop funding hotels and accommodation for the boat invasion and Stop giving money to lobbying so called charities.
March 15, 2024
Indeed kill HS2, kill net zero, kill energy market rigging, kill duff degree subsidies, kill benefits for everyone who can work…
JR correctly says “higher tax rates do not always deliver the extra revenue that Treasury and OBR planners seem to think they will” Indeed most tax rates in the UK are well about the Laffer point already. Not that the taxes should be anywhere need the Laffer point they should be far lower at the point that does maximum good for the people. Circa 20-25% of GDP is about right
March 15, 2024
The left is going to take much more in taxation; aren’t you listening to their promises right now? They want the welfare budget to expand and more money for the economically inactive. Just follow Starmer or Reeves social media. All the promises to their unions are going to cost.
March 15, 2024
Indeed. Tents and meagre rations as in France then they won’t come. Especially if they’re turned back or returned the same day. Our useless Government talks Rwanda, the world laughs at the fools. A quiet revolution is coming to deliver our wishes not Westminster woke.
March 15, 2024
There is virtually zero reduction in the tax on jobs. Fiscal drag and other tax grabs wipe it out for most people.
“The reason it is so high is primarily the huge expenditure the country, by general agreement, incurred to tackle the covid lockdown.”
The absurdly long lockdown was moronic as should have been clear to experts (and was to many) even before the first lock down. The reason is any lockdown could only delay a few infections of these perhaps on in a thousand or so could be serious but 999 in 1000 were not and were free vaccination for the healthy and young. So overall it was net damage to heath outcomes by delaying free natural vaccinations. Vaccinations that were more efficient and far safer than the big pharma ones that came later. It also did vast damage to other health care, mental health, the economy, children’s education…
Other reasons taxes are so high:- HS2. Net zero, endless government waste where ever you care look, soft loan loans for pointless degrees 750K net low skilled migration, hotels for illegal migrants, benefits for people who choose not to work, the ÂŁ400 million sick joke Covid Inquiry, the woke and diversity lunacy, overseas aid, pointless wars, people (not really) working from home much… Also taxes being so high exports industries and investment so they then go even higher in a doom loop!
March 15, 2024
So was the lockdown pushed worldwide to delay natural vaccination so they could sell more profitable, but very dangerous (as is now clear) new tech vaccines later? The “experts” even moronically gave them (indeed several doses) to young people and those who had had Covid already – so why?
March 15, 2024
It’s not just IR35 rules that need looking at. The whole of employment law needs an overhaul. The sole trader whose successful business demands he expand with an employee or two suddenly discovers he’s supposes to be a legal expert in employment law. Even if he does nothing wrong he may well find his employees make a mistake and he’s liable for a thick wedge of compensation that may well finish his business.
If A employs B and C and B discriminates against C, A is liable even if he did nothing wrong and nothing to encourage it. What is needed is if A employs B and C and B discriminates against C, B is liable not A. That way A can take disciplinary action without the fear of turning up evidence to hang himself with. Under the current arrangements it’s in A’s interest to cover up and deny as case C becomes his adversary.
March 15, 2024
Let us apply a good stress test
And see which small set ups come out best
Well shut down their shops
And call in the cops
One sale and weâll have an arrest festâŠâŠ
What a good idea! Great way to run an economy.
And now we are all paying the price.
March 15, 2024
so much for a low tax Party. So much for wanting to be prudent (apologies to Brown).
What happened to the ‘ fix the roof when the sun shines’?.
The Walker Brothers ‘The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore’ 1966
Loneliness is the cloak you wear
A deep shade of blue is always there
The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore
The moon ain’t gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you’re without love.
March 15, 2024
MT,
Tenuous links to the 1960s hit parade?
‘I can’t help myself’. Lifetime Conservative voters?
‘It’s the same old song’. Manifestos from the major parties since the year dot.
March 15, 2024
Where is it written that the Conservative Party has a divine right to be a major party ?
The Conservative voting bloodline ends with me this year and I’m sure this is true for very many families up and down the country.
You have continually rewarded people who will never vote for you at the cost of those who should.
March 15, 2024
Paula,
Agreed.
March 15, 2024
I canât really see how the treatment of small businesses over the years could have been about anything other than handing trade over to large conglomerates.
It has worked as far as vets and dentists are concerned âŠto the customerâs detriment.
And as for all other businesses I can scarcely bear the wokery and utter inefficiency.
I mean I couldnât give a single ratâs ars* whether milk is delivered âsustainablyâ yuk yuk!
I just want it to arrive drinkableâŠwhich it often does not!
Oh dearâŠI feel a âHealth Navigatorâ moment coming on. It is the lunacy that scares meâŠplus the looming poverty and starvation.
March 15, 2024
Some of the Sustainable Farming Incentives currently on offer to farmers from Defra to reduce our food production:
Get ÂŁ798 per hectare for flower-rich grass margins, blocks or in-field strips.
Plant a pollen and nectar flower-mix and receive ÂŁ739 per hectare,
Create a 4-metre to 12-metre grass buffer strip on arable and horticultural land and receive up to ÂŁ515 per hectare each year.
Receive ÂŁ151 per hectare per year to manage grasslands with very low nutrient inputs.
Get ÂŁ593 per hectare for legume fallows or ÂŁ102 per hectare for legumes on improved grassland.
I think our politicians want us to starve. What a huge waste of taxpayers money.
March 16, 2024
It doesn’t seem like Food Sustainability matters!
March 15, 2024
SJR, can I recommend you read , Reform UK, our contract with you, pages 3&4, Economy Personal and Economy Business. It covers all the elements of an economy and means to achieve it that you frequently espouse. It also comes with a sense of determination and sincerity that I cannot recognise among most of the current members of the Commons.
I can commend reading all 30 pages of this Reform Contract, you might find it reasuringly Conservative.
March 15, 2024
The main points in the Reform UK Party document are simple: net zero immigration and tax cuts (corporation tax from 25 down to 15% over the next five years, abolish IHT for all estates below ÂŁ2m, raising the 40% tax threshold from ÂŁ50,271 to ÂŁ70,000). But it also includes part-nationalisation of energy and water suppliers (50% shares to State, 50% to British pension funds). Overall that seems to be, according to polls taken these last two years, what the majority of voters want: lower immigration, tougher crime policies, public ownership of utilities, higher taxation of the wealthy and stronger workersâ rights.
I am not sure that everybody wants a smaller state and to be an âentrepreneurâ and that by doing so the UK would go back being at the forefront of science developments. These last 20-30 years most of such developments have come from start-up companies, established companies or universities.
Can a self-employed really be the creator of a new medicine, new robotics, new microchips, new adaptative control systems, new graphene-like material, new advances in genomics, ⊠?
I doubt it.
See sciencedaily.com and count the number of self-employed âmicro-entrepreneursâ in the last 30 (or more) days of reporting.
March 15, 2024
Is Elon Musk self employed, what about Jeff Bezos, or Steve Jobs, were they all self-employed entrepreneurs or not? What about the craft queen from dragons den wasn’t she a self-employed entrepreneur and if she’s paying loads of tax what does it matter that it isn’t high tech.
March 15, 2024
Reform is unelectable because of the threat of PR, which destroys the voters power to sack the Government forever.
I prefer Starmer by a military mile.
March 15, 2024
“The contributory fund is primarily for the pension, which is reflected in the fact that everyone in receipt of a state retirement pensionâor in expectation of one when they get to the relevant ageâwill have their pension based on their contribution record.”
“If we suddenly went away from such a system, we would need to answer the question: how do we settle eligibility for state pension?”
People who are more cynical than me might question whether the abolition of employee National Insurance contributions and changes to state pension eligibility are part of a plan to move to universal basic income as recommended by the World Economiuc Forum ?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-social-inequality/
March 15, 2024
Your government is doing nothing to defend your record and remind people of the spending you took on. All the left talks about is the Mone and another ppe waste scandal (but I remember the attacks on tv every night from the NHS from the opposition parties saying you weren’t buying enough PPE fast enough, turns out they didn’t need that much) then there was the ventilator episode, the NHS and all the opposition we need more ventilators, that was facilitated, oh no they’re more dangerous we don’t need them.
This loud chatter is drowning out the good life-saving support that was given, and your MPs just let it pass without a bite back.
The ÂŁ1.57 billion support for cultural organisations, listening to Starmer yesterday, they’re telling the arts and cultural world your party abandoned them, and they’re going to make everything right. The SEISS loans for cultural workers out of work because you closed down their industry but it only went to those paying taxes the previous couple of years. The Universal Credit support for everyone not covered by SEISS or Furlough. Why the heck aren’t you reminding people of all these support payments. Lots of people never went back to work when furlough ended they took early retirement. Or they figured they were better off part-time claiming universal credit.
March 15, 2024
A lot of the “wishful” in your speech Sir John . The budget was an ill-conceived approach and the Conservative Party are faced with the sort of challenge now they are likely not able to overcome – certainly not when led by the Sunak/Hunt partnership . There has been a foolish and il-conceived process in allowing management of the economy to be heavily influenced by the BoE and the OBR ; their errors and mistakes have cost voters support and the chances of a come-back are minimal . I am amazed that so far the letters of no confidence have not reached the necessary proportion to bring about the change necessary .
March 15, 2024
Sir John
You have given us a lot to absorb today, and far too much to be able to comment on effectively.
You missed a bit on the VAT, yes by now the threshold should have been approaching the ÂŁ250K. But your Government, your PM and Chancellor have signed to keep the UK under the control of the EU for VAT among many things, as such they have made themselves powerless to do what is right for the UK.
It is the same ole, same ole â the refusal to get Brexit done, by ensuring that the EU dictates UK policy that holds us back. As the EU stated at the time of the WA the UK is now their Colony.
March 15, 2024
Sir John
As you will be aware as reported by Guido this week, internal Treasury briefings are making quite the case for a low-tax economy
https://order-order.com/2024/03/12/internal-treasury-document-establishes-case-for-large-tax-cuts/
So, it would not be unreasonable to conclude it is this Conservative Government that are either irresponsible, not thinking things through, or are the malicious architects of decline through high taxation.
March 15, 2024
I’m going to be controversial here, John, but why should self-employed people not pay their fair share of the Countries National Insurance towards pensions. It’s not like they get less pension than a paid worker, in fact if they haven’t put up for themselves in the workplace pension 5% (8% in total for paye workers) they probably can also get pension credits when they retire!
If the Employer’s NI was added to the Employee’s gross wage, then deducted from gross in a double hit, and the paye worker realised how much they are paying, the self-employed wouldn’t get away with it. The self-employed worker would then have to charge in for that portion of their pay, the same that any small employer has to price it in to their charges to engage staff and calculate their taxes for them.
The small business owner is doing all the PAYE tax collection for the government for free, indeed they either have to pay their accountant to do this monthly or buy a software package as tax is digital and the online filing of forms, including the pension reports required by deadlines or you are fined.
Rather large companies were engaging lots of people self-employed, they’ve now got around this with mini franchisees where three ex self-employed workers work under one umbrella so the large company isn’t responsible anymore and the chance of a small employer with a team of three getting picked up for IR35 is remote. Government just needs to get out of the way. Tax everyone the same. Get rid of Employer’s NI and get this put onto the Employee’s gross and collect it at the same rate off everyone.
Reply Self employed do not have the same rights as employees. They do not get sickpay and paid holiday etc
March 16, 2024
No, I disagree, the government doesnât pay holiday pay or sick pay whoever charges the client has to pay it. Whether you are a one man band, a micro 2 person, or 5 – 50 person business. If youâre self employed you are responsible for paying yourself sick pay and holiday pay, how is that different to a small business person with three staff who have to pay for all those things? They price that into their quote so why shouldnât the self-employed, in fact they do as they take holidays, my Dad when self-employed has insurance from the federation he was member of that he had to put up for and add into his rates.
Why should you be able to undercut a small business in the same field by not having to pay employers NI or putting up for the sick pay, sick pay holiday and holiday pay?
March 16, 2024
By the way Iâd prefer the government to take back over sick pay and charge everybody a % on every ÂŁ1 to get the sick cover, everyone in the same boat.
March 15, 2024
“It is an absolute pleasure to listen to my right hon. Friend. I want to reinforce his point about IR35 so that our colleagues on the Government Front Bench are clear about how important this is”
Sums up why the SME army’s “Contribution” growing the economy and productivity was decimated after Gordon Brown and New Labour IR35 sledge hammer / chain saw cut through to the bone, egged on by big business and consulting lobbies to reduce competition.
Your speech was very important emphasising the noble and fairness “Contribution Principle” which encouraged everyone however humble to turbo charging the economy under Mrs T.
By contrast today many adolescents brag on the internet how they spend their feckless days. So sad that the “Education, education, education” has produced so little.
Civil servants are upset and going on strike because they are asked to go into the office for 2 days!
They don’t know they were born compared to our previous generations.
March 15, 2024
The totalitarian net-zero dictatorship continues â I received this letter today from my energy supplier
âŠââAs part of this nationwide effort, all energy suppliers are obligated by the government to stall smart meters in their customers homesââ âŠ
I will never vote Tory again
March 16, 2024
moneysavingexpert.com 08/02/2024 âCan I refuse a smart meter?â
âSmart meters are not mandatory unless yours is faulty or at the end of its lifeâ
March 15, 2024
Dear Sir John,
Congratulations on an excellent speech.
Concerning lockdowns, though its successful delivery was a big achievement of the UK Government, I believe our furlough scheme had been pernicious in its long term impact. It made people idle and underemployed. There’s also a feeling of not being valued. Of course chefs and airline pilots went on furlough, but a for whole panoply of employees who were in a grey area, companies selected who was vital, and who to park in furlough – that’s not a nice feeling for anyone. It’s not surprising that its long term fruits have been so negative. Germany’s scheme paid people to remain working. I appreciate that took patriotic, teutonic restraint for companies not to just place all their employees on furlough (or perhaps it was policed in some way), but the end result seems to have been that people stayed working. Sunak’s big success has been, I believe, a failure in the long term.
Regards,
SR
March 18, 2024
It was indeed quite right that businesses and individuals should have received state support during lockdowns. That is just part of the cost of fighting a pandemic; it requires a national effort. The fault that can rightly be levelled at the Tory and Labour Governments is that the UK was almost bankrupt when the pandemic hit as a result of the big state policies of both. By contrast Australia had very low levels of debt and could well afford such support. there was an outcrey when it threatend to blow up to 35% of GDP because of pandemic support – an outcry led by the anti-lockdown brigade as it was in the UK. What the Anti-Lockdown Brigade never take account of is the economic cost and personal misery that would ensue had there been no lockdowns. Of course the lockdowns in the UK could have been better designed and implemented but that is another matter and it is in any case irrelevant as there will never be another lockdown in the UK. Ever.
March 19, 2024
It takes 35 years of NI ‘stamps’ to get a full state pension, ten to get any state pension.âSay one reaches state pension age with no stamps and no savings to speak of, etc.âWhat percentage of a full state pension would instead be available through various benefits?âGiven the full state pension wouldn’t have me sat in the lap of luxury, presumably there’s not much of a gap between the ‘bare minimum’ from benefits and the full state pension?âIf so, are the NI contributions rewarded adequately in that case?
March 20, 2024
If you’re referring to the difference between a full pension and the Pension Credit system I agree wholeheartedly. Pension Credit payments are effectively allowing those who did no work to have a “pension on benefits”.
The other problem is having out-of-work benefits notionally paying tax NI. This means people on the dole are accruing pension entitlement while not working! These two problems in the welfare system are a major factor in the number of people economically inactive and not seeking employment. They are being handed a free pass, why would they bother?
March 20, 2024
I was disappointed to see a suggestion that Employers NI would be used to assess pension entitlement. The implications were not thought through.
Not everyone pays Employers NI – notably, not the self-employed. So would they no longer have a pension in the author’s suggested scheme, or would they suddenly be paying Employers NI?
As an overall effect of removing Employees NI, we would then see pensioners and others paying the inevitable higher income tax rates due to abolishing Employees NI and the self-employed hit with employment taxes. That seems to have invented the concept of a lose-lose scenario (unless you’re the Treasury of course).
And the Conservatives wonder why they are losing the battle for hearts and minds. Sigh. Making enemies of your core vote is not smart – they see through the pretence that this is somehow “doing something good”. It’s yet another obvious tax grab. Why did the author not actually say this in his speech? What is he afraid of – the party whips?
That assumes that the incumbents in No 10 and No 11 actually care about being re-elected and care about what the core vote think. The evidence, such as these actions, suggest otherwise.
March 20, 2024
Self employed numbers dropped from 2020-24 largely with covid as a catalyst.
However, the 2021 changes were a major factor as we emerged from the pandemic, as was the abysmal lack of support for the self-employed compared to companies with employees. The self-employed got loans while the employed got handouts – even the loan eligibility was based on profits and many small businesses such as B&Bs try to minimise profits.
The seeds of this were long-standing, as Patel said. I’m frequently disappointed to hear our host only in favour of reversing the 2017/2021 changes, but not IR35 itself. IR35 has been a blight on the self-employed since 2001 and needs to go.
The new taxes on dividends, reduced allowances against that tax are also factors in people leaving self employment.
At Autumn Budget 2021, the government announced that the rate of Income Tax applicable to dividend income would increase by 1.25 percentage point to 8.75% for the ordinary rate, 33.75% for the upper rate and 39.35% for the additional rate from April 2022.
Individuals with taxable dividend income above ÂŁ1,000 in the tax year 2023 to 2024 and above ÂŁ500 from the tax year 2024 to 2025. Note that this was introduced relatively recently and the allowance was ÂŁ5,000 initially. It has now been eroded by 90% in just a few years!!! Stealth tax on steroids.
Once again, I’m disappointed to see our host not arguing for repeal of IR35 and removal of many of the taxes on the self-employed who are forced to work through Ltd Cos.