Liberal Democrats table amendment to exempt health and care providers from NICs hike

EMBARGO: 22.30 Monday 16th December

The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the 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 Lib Dem amendment would protect social care providers, hospices, NHS GPs, dentists and pharmacies from being hit by the NICs rise.

Previous research by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that the NICs hike could end up costing GP surgeries the equivalent of more than two million appointments a year because of an additional £125.5 million tax bill inflicted upon them.

Social care is also set to be pummelled by the NICs rise with the Nuffield Trust estimating that it will cost providers £900 million a year, far higher than the additional £600 million allocated to social care at the Budget.

The Liberal Democrats have called the government’s proposed NICs hike “self-defeating” and said it will “only inflict more misery on patients”. The Party urged the Chancellor to “urgently rethink" the tax change or risk “making the crisis in health and care even worse”.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, Daisy Cooper MP said:

“Thanks to years of Conservative neglect, our NHS and care are in crisis, with patients left to suffer. The new government’s self-defeating tax rise will only inflict more misery on patients and risks making the crisis in health and care even worse.

“The Chancellor must surely recognise that you cannot fix the economy without fixing our NHS. All this tax hike will do is pile more pressure onto our health and care services which are already on the brink of collapse.

“The government must urgently rethink this decision, back our amendment 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.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The Liberal Democrat amendment can be found here. (Amendment one). 

Previous Liberal Democrat research on the impact of the NICs rise on GPs can be found here.

Nuffield Trust research on the cost to social care can be found here.