Clacton MP has his say on proposed National Insurance increase

Today the Prime Minister announced a National Insurance hike of 1.25 percentage points from April 2022 to address the funding crisis in the health and social care system.

Mr Johnson stressed to MPs that the Government must help the NHS “recover” from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

He also expressed a desire to "pay good wages" and called the action plan the “biggest catch up programme” in the health service’s history.

Mr Johnson believes the tax hike will help increase hospital capacity to 110 per cent and enable nine million more appointments, scans and operations.

He also said the NHS will be able to aim to treat around 30 per more elective patients by 2024-2025 than they could before the pandemic.

Speaking earlier the Prime Minister told the Commons: “We must now help the NHS to recover to be able to provide this much-needed care to our constituents and the people we love. We must provide the funding to do so now.

“We not only have to pay for the operations and treatments that people decided not to have during the pandemic, but we also need to pay good wages for the 50,000 nurses who have enabled that treatment and who can help us tackle waiting lists that could otherwise expand to 13 million over the next few years.”

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The hike has, however, proved controversial with some Tory MPS, who believe it breaks the party's manifesto pledge to not raise tax. 

Clacton MP Giles Watling has now had his say on the decision.

He said: “Social care is important but it is a nettle which has not been grasped for some time.

“So, the money has to come from somewhere and that is through taxation, and National Insurance is of course a form of taxation.

“We must, however, ensure it does not hit the less well-off workers but, as a principle, I do support the decision to increase National Insurance contributions.”