Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to share the concerns that my constituents and businesses in Chichester have raised with me since the announcement in the Chancellor’s Budget that employer’s national insurance contributions would be increased.
First, I would like to acknowledge the Labour Government’s inheritance from the previous Government, and recognise that tough decisions need to be made to rebuild public services, especially our health service. The Liberal Democrats welcome the proposed increase to employment allowance, but the blanket increase in the rate of secondary class 1 contributions across all sectors is going to make things harder for GPs, social care providers, charities and local authorities in my constituency and across the country. Those sectors have had a tough time for years, struggling with rising energy costs and higher interest rates, with thousands of care providers on the brink of bankruptcy, NHS dentists already delivering some NHS treatments at a financial loss, and charities already grappling with underfunded public sector contracts.
West Meads GP surgery is one of the smaller practices in Bersted in my constituency. It is looking at increased costs of at least £25,000, which will mean a reduction in staffing hours. The GP who wrote to me said:
“This is a first and will certainly impact on patient care if not addressed.”
The same can be said for Witterings Medical Centre, another practice that is already operating under extraordinary demand. The added costs will exacerbate strain in the system, because overstretched and under-resourced GPs will lead to an increase in hospital admissions, overwhelming NHS capacity at a time when it already cannot cope. The Government’s treatment of GPs as private entities excludes them from the employment allowance support, and if we do not fix the front and the back door of our national health service, the middle—our secondary care, our hospitals—will continue to bear the burden.
St Wilfrid’s hospice echoes these challenges, citing the inequity in exemptions being granted to NHS services, but not to charities providing similar health-related services. The hospice predicts a bill increase of £175,000. That would pay for four nurses, who could be out in the community providing care for the most vulnerable. The predicted national impact of this rise on the charitable sector is £1.4 billion. While I am on the topic of charities, I would like briefly to mention Stonepillow, a charity that supports individuals experiencing homelessness and with compound needs. It has seen a doubling of demand since 2018—it serves 1,000 clients annually—and it reports needing to find an additional £150,000 every year to continue offering its service.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care talked of moving the health model in this country from treatment to prevention and from hospital to community, but the increase in NICs directly undermines the ability to do that, if GPs have to reduce their services, if more dentists move further away from NHS contracts, if social care staff lose their jobs when their small and medium-sized care providers go bankrupt, and if community pharmacies, a key pillar in the NHS ecosystem, face spiralling debt and struggle to keep pace with operating costs.
In the interests of constructive opposition, I am not minded to bring problems without solutions. The Chancellor could have chosen to raise the money needed through the much fairer tax changes laid out in the Liberal Democrat manifesto during the general election, such as the reversal of the Conservative tax cuts for the big banks, doubling the rate of gaming duty paid by online gambling services or a fairer reform of capital gains tax. If I had more than 10 seconds left, I would give many other reasons why I am unfortunately unable to support this Bill on Second Reading.
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