Labour’s Employers’ National Insurance Hike hits Care Services, Hospices and Voluntary Sector

The Chancellor’s Budget hike in Employers’ National Insurance charges is hugely damaging to local and national care services, Hospices and all sorts of Voluntary Sector bodies delivering vital services, according to local Liberal Democrats.  The Party claim the government needs to exempt care homes, children’s nurseries, hospices and other vital support services from the charge.

Rutherglen Councillor Robert Brown, South Lanarkshire Council’s Liberal Democrat Group Leader, said some care providers, who are already struggling, could be pushed to the brink by the extra charges.

Robert Brown said:

“The result of Labour’s tax hike is that care providers who run residential homes or provide care at home to elderly people, and health services like opticians, pharmacists, NHS GPs, hospices or dentists will face more pressure and more cost pressures quite unnecessarily.

I personally think Labour Ministers did not really consider the implications on the voluntary sector or on health and care providers. If they did, announcing the change without suitable exemptions was pretty silly.

The 72 strong Liberal Democrat team in Parliament have tabled an amendment to the UK Government’s National Insurance Contributions Bill to exempt health and care providers from the proposed tax hike and warned that the government’s jobs tax risks “making the crisis in health and care even worse”.

The NHS and the care services are already in crisis after years of neglect by Conservative and SNP Ministers. The new Labour government’s self-defeating tax rise will only inflict more misery on patients and risks making the crisis in health and care even worse.

Labour must urgently rethink this decision, support the Liberal Democrat demand to exempt vital health and care providers from this tax hike and focus instead on getting people off waiting lists and back into work, not burdening GPs and care providers with even higher costs.”