Debate contribution: Front-line Services: Employers’ National Insurance Increase

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 13 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Eóin Tennyson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

13 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Front-line Services: Employers’ National Insurance Increase

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4738676

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. You may be relieved to know that I do not intend to take the full 10 minutes to propose the amendment. During the last general election campaign, Alliance warned of the real and pressing challenges that the UK's public finances faced after 14 years of Conservative rule. We also, however, set out credible and progressive solutions that focused on ensuring that those with the broadest shoulders would bear the greatest burden and on promoting economic growth. Sadly, it appears that the new Labour Government have largely ignored those calls. Instead, they are pursuing a regressive tax on employment, cutting the winter fuel payment and breaking promises that were made to women against state pension inequality (WASPI). The hike in employers' National Insurance contributions will create obvious and enormous pressures on not only businesses and the community and voluntary sector but the Executive at a time when our finances and public services are under strain. Some of the estimated additional costs to individual Departments have already been read into the record by Diane Forsythe. I will not repeat what Diane said, but I echo her call for the Finance Minister to provide some more clarity in her winding-up speech on the implications for the whole Executive, given that the Scottish Government have already set out their assessment. Despite the obvious complications and implications, it is clear that no meaningful consultation took place with the Executive or any other devolved Administration, nor with business or third-sector organisations. Whilst the Chancellor has confirmed her intention to provide relief to public-sector employers, she has not committed to covering the costs in full. Instead, we will receive a Barnett consequential based on the funding that is provided to Whitehall Departments. That approach is obviously flawed, given that Northern Ireland's public sector is proportionately larger than that in other parts of the UK. It means that, in effect, Northern Ireland's public services will be funding a tax increase for the rest of the UK. There also has been no commitment to provide support for the community and voluntary sector that provides vital front-line public services on behalf of the Government. As mentioned, vital organisations like Women's Aid and Nexus are key to the Executive's strategy to end violence against women and girls. Mental health charities are key to delivering our ambitions on mental health and childcare providers are key to the Executive's ambitions to deliver universal and affordable childcare. The change will create a bizarre two-tier system whereby those third-sector organisations that deliver vital services on behalf of Government are hit harder than those in the public sector itself. That is against the backdrop of the enormous challenges that those organisations have already faced in recent years, including the loss of EU funds through Brexit and the recent UK Government decision to reduce shared prosperity funding. The picture is also bleak for independent providers. GPs and community pharmacists have warned of the potential for the changes to create a further disparity between funding for primary and secondary care. Those fears were echoed by the Health Minister when he stated that he did not anticipate any additional funding being made available to support family practitioners and the independent sector. It is clear that, in failing to properly mitigate those cost pressures, we will hamper service delivery, jeopardise the reform agenda and cap our ambitions to move towards a preventative and community-based model of care in our health service. At Westminster, my colleague Sorcha Eastwood MP has tabled amendments on behalf of Alliance that seek to protect vital services. Our proposals would exempt care homes, domiciliary care providers, GP and dental surgeries, pharmacists, health and social care charities and community organisations from Labour's proposed National Insurance increase. However, the UK Government must go further and properly compensate the Executive for all the costs that are incurred. I welcome the motion in that we have an opportunity to send a clear and united message from the Assembly to the Government that Northern Ireland's public services and its community and voluntary sector should not bear the brunt of the tax hike. On that basis, I urge Members to support the motion and our amendment.

698 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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