Tory fury at manifesto breach

TORY MPs last night turned on Philip Hammond as he broke the party’s manifesto commitment not to put up National Insurance.

The Conservatives pledged four times in their 2015 general election manifesto not to raise the contributions.

David Cameron unveiled the policy as part of a ‘tax lock’ that aides have since admitted was ‘cooked up on the hoof’ in the final weeks of the campaign.

Now 2.5million self-employed will lose an average £240 a year as their National Insurance rises from 9 to 10 per cent.

A week before the 2015 election, Mr Cameron announced the five-year lock would be enshrined in law. Working people had ‘paid enough tax’ and should ‘be able to keep more of the money to spend as you choose,’ he added. Mr Cameron said the alternative was a Labour government that would inevitably raise taxes. ‘Here’s the choice – you get me, you get that guarantee about taxes,’ he said. ‘You get Ed Miliband and you’ve got someone who attacked every single spending reduction and saving we had to make. Every single change to welfare he has opposed.

‘You can only draw one conclusion. He would put up taxes, reach into your pay packet and cut your pay. I say working people have paid enough tax.’

In a tweet, Mr Cameron pledged: ‘Between May 2015 to May 2020, there will be no increases in National Insurance.’

One of Mr Cameron’s Downing Street advisers last year admitted the tax lock had been ‘cooked up’. Ameet Gill, who was the former PM’s head of strategic communications, told BBC Radio 4 in October: ‘When I was in government, we made some announcements on the hoof just to fill that vacuum.

‘Towards the end of the general election campaign in 2015, we did the fiveyear tax lock. It’s when we committed to put in legislation that we would not increase taxes. It was probably the dumbest economic policy anyone could make, but we kind of cooked it up on the hoof a couple of days before because we had a hole in the grid and we needed to fill it.’