Johnson and Sunak sticking with National Insurance rise

THE Prime Minister and the Chancellor last night vowed to push ahead with a £12 billion National Insurance hike amid pressure from Tory MPs to ditch the controversial move.

In a joint intervention, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak described the levy – which will fund sweeping social care reforms and aim to clear the NHS patient backlog caused by Covid – as “the right plan”.

The planned 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance Contributions, which is expected to cost the average worker an extra £255 a year, is reported to have led to a Cabinet split.

There has been mounting speculation that Mr Johnson was “wobbling” over the move as he fights to stave off a backbench uprising against his premiership in the wake of ‘partygate’, with Tory MPs urging him to delay or cancel the tax increase. But, in an article for TheSunday Times, Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak wrote: “We must go ahead with the health and social care levy. It is the right plan.”

They described themselves as “taxcutting Conservatives” and said they believe “people are the best judges of how to spend their money”. The article continued: “We are also Thatcherites, in the sense that we believe ... there is no magic money tree.”

It comes as the Government faces down what it is feared will be the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.

New figures suggest one in seven renters cannot secure a home without a guarantor, as soaring rents and a property shortage have forced even well-off people to struggle. Landlords who weathered rent losses during the pandemic eviction ban are now making more significant demands for references. In 2019, 9.3 per cent of tenants had to provide a guarantor. Last year, the share jumped to 13.5 per cent, an increase of nearly half in two years, according to data from referencing company Goodlord.