Rishi Sunak has put another cut in national insurance and promise to reduce immigration at the heart of the Conservative campaign to get re-elected.
Launching the Tory manifesto today, the Prime Minister said that his party would bring“ lower immigration, lower taxes and protected pensions”
Tax has already played a major role in the earlier skirmishes between the two main parties but the immigration element reflects the ground being lost to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.
Reform’s poll results have been rising while the Tories have dropped even more and Farage is now confidently predicting it will oust Tory MPs in some seats.
Reform gaining
In the manifesto, Sunak said he would reduce national insurance by a further 2% following the cut to 8% from 10% in the last Budget having already cut it from 12%.
That will cost more than £10 billion a year by 2028/29 but reportedly is part of a mission by Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to end what they see as the ‘double taxation’ of workers already paying income tax.
Added to the earlier cuts, the manifesto claims that for someone earning £35,000 a year the reduction in NI saves them £1,350.
Self-employed national insurance for four million people will also end by the end of the next Parliament, Sunak added in a surprise move.
Earlier pledges not to increase income tax or VAT were also confirmed, as was the boost to the pension tax thresholds.
Housing boost
On housing, the PM added he would build 1.6 million new homes in the next parliament.
Stamp duty would be abolished for first-time buyers on properties up to the value of £425,000 with a new Help to Buy scheme also to help people at the bottom of the property ladder.
All told the pledges add up to around £17 billion over the life of the next Parliament, calculates the BBC..
Funding these will see £6 billion generated from a crackdown on tax avoidance and £12 billion from lower welfare payments, said the document.
Labour leader Keir Starmer dismissed this, saying the money was not there and adding it was a “recipe for five more years of chaos” under the Conservatives.