CBI, CBI criticises increase in National Insurance

Manufacturing News, Source : TheManufacturer.com
Published : 19 Apr 2002 9:56
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CBI director-general Digby Jones has criticised the Government’s increase in National Insurance contributions, claiming that business people were very unhappy at the extra burden they were being asked to shoulder.

He said: We are worried that he is now imposing a business tax burden that impacts directly on the cost of employing people at a time when UK competitiveness is being put to the test. An increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions impacts on every business of every size regardless of whether or not they are making profits.”

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt defended the increase. Speaking on BBC Radio 4, she said: "Sickness is costing UK business alone nearly £11 billion a year so they, and almost everybody else in our country, knows that if we are going to get a really good health system we have got to pay for it.

"The only question is then how to pay for it. I know the CBI were very worried indeed that if there were going to be increases in taxes or contributions, they would all be loaded on to business.

"What Gordon Brown has done is to ensure that employees pay, employers pay, the self-employed pay - all of us sharing that extra 1p on National Insurance to make sure that we do get the money that the National Health Service needs."

 

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