National Insurance hike could be reversed as soon as NOVEMBER: Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is set to announce decision in ‘mini Budget’ next Friday amid cost of living crisis
- The national insurance increase could be reversed as soon as November
- Kwasi Kwarteng will make an emergency tax-cutting ‘mini Budget’ next Friday
- Mr Kwarteng will announce measures to help people keep more of their earnings
The national insurance hike could be reversed as soon as November, putting more money in people’s pay packets, the Chancellor will announce next week.
Kwasi Kwarteng will make an emergency tax-cutting ‘mini Budget’ next Friday to deliver on Liz Truss’s leadership campaign pledges.
With households facing soaring bills amid the cost of living crisis, Mr Kwarteng will announce measures to help them keep more of what they earn.
Miss Truss pledged during the Tory leadership campaign to use the Budget to ‘immediately tackle the cost of living crisis by cutting taxes, reversing the rise on national insurance and suspending the green levy on energy bills’.
Kwasi Kwarteng will make an emergency tax-cutting ‘mini Budget’ next Friday to deliver on Liz Truss’s leadership campaign pledges
The Daily Mail understands the national insurance rise could be reversed as soon as November – despite initial concerns that it could take far longer because of payroll complications.
Since April, workers and employers have been paying an extra 1.25p in the pound for national insurance under the Government’s plan to fund the NHS and social care.
Mr Kwarteng will also use his fiscal statement to confirm that next year’s planned hike in corporation tax will not go ahead.
And he could push ahead with plans for City deregulation, having told bank chiefs he wants a ‘Big Bang 2.0’ – referring to Margaret Thatcher’s sudden deregulation of financial markets – to make London the capital of global finance again.
Earlier this week, Treasury sources confirmed Mr Kwarteng was considering scrapping the cap on bankers’ bonuses to make the City of London more globally competitive.
The mini Budget will mark a major change in approach from Boris Johnson’s administration, with a shift to cutting taxes to drive growth. A separate announcement on an energy package for business is also expected next week.
It comes after the Government announced an unprecedented multi-billion-pound package to tackle sky-high energy bills and ease the cost of living crisis, with a focus on capping prices and boosting domestic energy supplies.
Under the ‘energy price guarantee’, bills for the average household will go no higher than £2,500 at any point over the next two years.
It will save a typical home around £1,000 from October 1, when the current consumer price cap had been set to soar.
Businesses were promised similar levels of support, but the details have not yet been announced.
Liz Truss pledged during the Tory leadership campaign to use the Budget to ‘immediately tackle the cost of living crisis by cutting taxes, reversing the rise on national insurance and suspending the green levy on energy bills’
Last night Conservative MPs urged the Government to ‘get on with’ slashing taxes.
Tory grandee Sir John Redwood said: ‘I’m sure they will do the pledged tax cuts and then they’ve got to put some numbers and legislative flesh on the bones of the energy package.
‘And they’ve got to show how growth is actually fed through – because I think the choice at the moment is you either have a rising deficit this year and next because of the measures you take to stimulate the economy, or you have an even bigger rising deficit because you don’t take measures to stimulate the economy and you go into recession.
‘If you have a long and deep recession, the sort of Sunak policy, all the past evidence shows you end up with a bigger deficit because revenues collapse.’
Parliament is suspended while the country is in mourning following the death of the Queen, and Miss Truss is expected to fly to New York for the UN General Assembly following the monarch’s funeral on Monday.
MPs had been due to break for conference season on September 22, but it will be delayed by a day to allow for the Budget.
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