Undermining our collective identity

I HEAR that both Hunt and Richly Richmond want to abolish National Insurance contributions because, they argue, it is a tax on jobs. A number of things occur to me.

We have been told for years now that NI payments don’t actually go into a hypothecated fund and get absorbed as general income for the Treasury (to all intents and purpose a tax). So, unlike private pensions, there is no “pension pot” either individual or collective.

On the other hand we are eligible for various schemes based on our NI record: not only State Pension, but also Job Seekers Allowance (what used to be Unemployment Benefit); Employment and Support Allowance (replacing Sickness Benefit); Maternity Benefit; Bereavement Support.

If they abolish NI how will people be eligible (earn the right) for such payments? The whole point of NI was that it was a collective insurance that we paid into when we could work and claim from when we couldn’t. Before NI, people feared getting old, sick or unemployed because there lay destitution and the handouts of charity.

Are they nudging us towards private insurance? Already personal pensions are the norm for all employed people. How long before people have to take out personal insurance to cover the risk of unemployment, sickness, etc? If that happens then the only state help will be Universal Credit with tighter and tighter conditions. A new dystopian regime of Poor Law.

I see it as part of the long march from collective identity towards a privatised and individualistic society. Which political party will now robustly defend the welfare state?

Keith Morgan Whitchurch, Cardiff