The Conservatives have pledged to halve national insurance to 6 per cent by 2027 and scrap self-employed national insurance at the launch of its general election manifesto.
Speaking at the launch at Silverstone, Conservative leader Rishi Sunak, stated: “We believe that hard work shouldn’t be taxed twice. That’s unfair.”
He added that the party’s national insurance tax costs are already worth £900 to the average worker and that, through the consistent cutting of taxes in the coming years, they will have halved NI to 6 per cent by 2027.
“That is a tax cut worth £1,300 to the average worker,” he explained.
Sunak additionally spoke about different forms of national insurance pledging that, by the end of the next Parliament, the Conservatives will “scrap, entirely, the main rate of self-employed NI”.
“A tax abolished and enterprise encouraged,” he added.
Sunak explained how his party intends to fund these policies, stating: “We will pay for permanent reductions in taxation by controlling the unsustainable rise in working age welfare that has taken off since the pandemic.
“We will ensure that we have lower welfare so that we can deliver lower taxes.”
Housing
Sunak also looked at measures to encourage more people onto the property ladder to create what he referred to as a “ownership society”.
One such measure to achieve this was the abolishment of stamp duty for first time buyers purchasing a house up to £425,000.
He also promised to introduce a new form of help-to-buy to “get a new generation onto the property ladder”.
Support for renters was also present in the manifesto as it pledged to “fully abolish” no fault eviction notices for renters.
A similar pledge was also made in the Conservative’s 2019 general election manifesto.
Pensions
The launch also discussed benefits for pensioners, with the previously announced new triple lock plus policy.
As part of the plans the personal allowance for pensioners will increase by either 2.5 per cent, in line with average earnings or inflation - whichever is higher
Sunak argued that this would ensure that the "state pension is never dragged into income tax.”
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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