CALLS to delay the increase in national insurance contributions for employers and employees have come from entrepreneurs Sir Tom Hunter and Lord Willie Haughey ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement on Wednesday.
Ayrshire businessman Sir Tom reiterated his call to delay the increase announced by Boris Johnson last autumn, due to come into effect next month, given the spiralling cost-of-living crisis and rising energy bills.
“What I am looking for is a delay in national insurance contributions for both employees and employers because there are shocks coming with increased energy prices, both domestic and commercial,” he said.
“I would like the Chancellor to cut fuel duty as well,” he continued. “France, Germany, Ireland, Holland – they have all either cut their fuel duty or are planning to cut it.”
Sir Tom suggested that “things are not as bad as perhaps we would believe from the headlines”, noting: “Borrowing was forecast to be £183 billion and it is only going to be £160bn. The Chancellor is getting the windfall VAT tax from the price of fuel.
Lord Willie said his wish was for the Chancellor to “use some of that windfall tax to offset, to help the ordinary man and woman with their fuel bills”, adding: “We must work with people because if we don’t there could be hundreds of thousands of people who can’t pay their bills – I hope the Chancellor takes that on board.”
Discussing the temporary reduced VAT rate for the hospitality industry which is due to revert back to 20 per cent from its current 12.5% level on April 1, Sir Tom said: “I don’t envy the Chancellor as everybody is at his door with a begging bowl.
“Would I rather see VAT go up for hospitality or national insurance not go up for employees and employers? I would go for national insurance.”
However, Lord Haughey suggested that it was “too soon to put VAT back up to 20%” and pointed to a gradual increase as a better option for the hospitality sector if it has “any chance to pay back loans they got from the Government during Covid”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here