I start by reminding the House of a prescient analogy of Winston Churchill’s:
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
This national insurance increase and threshold cut is simply a tax on jobs in the private sector. It will result in less employment, fewer bonuses, smaller pay rises and higher prices—and for what? To fund a state that is out of control and shows no regard for taxpayers’ money. That is exemplified by the Department for Work and Pensions, which hands out money like confetti, without the requisite disciplines. The answer is to radically cut
the size of the state and release the innate creativity of the British people. What we need is less state, less tax, less bureaucracy and more prosperity. Will the Government accept full responsibility for the suffering that this tax increase will inevitably cause to our working people?
6.3 pm