Sunak aims to cut benefits to fund his National Insurance plans

RISHI SUNAK is aiming to cut benefits to fund his plans to scrap National Insurance contributions.

The Prime Minister has said that his Government’s “long-term ambition” by the end of the next parliament is to continue cutting National Insurance contributions (NICS) “until it’s gone”. To fund his tax-cutting goals “sustainably”, he said that he would consult on plans to further reduce working-age benefits, describing the current system as one that did not work properly.

He made the comments amid speculation that there will be another fiscal event before the election, with senior Treasury sources claiming it could be as early as September.

Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, used last week’s Budget to announce that workers would see another cut to NI of 2p from April, on top of the 2p drop announced last autumn.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Sunak said that he wanted “to end this double taxation in work”. He said: “It’s unnecessarily complex. All that money ultimately goes into the same pot to fund public services. So…our longterm ambition is to end that unfairness, to keep cutting NICS until it’s gone, because that is the best way to reward hard work, simplify the tax system, and build the kind of society that I think is right.

“We’ve cut NICS by a third in two events over six months. So that demonstrates we are delivering and we can go further, though it’s important that we stick to the plan and then we can make significant progress towards that goal in Parliament.” Mr Sunak revealed that it was his plan to curb welfare spending to make the money available for his tax plans, which Labour have claimed would cost £46billion.

Pointing to the almost 2.5 million people of working age who have been signed off as unfit to work, he said: “We now sign off three times as many people to be out of work than we did a decade ago. That just doesn’t strike me as a system that’s working properly.”

Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, said that the Government wanted to transform “sick note culture” into a “fit note” system which encouraged people into work.

Speaking to Sky News yesterday, Ms Atkins said that she was looking into how to help Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, to get more people back into work.