Social Care: 1.25% increase in National Insurance from April 2022

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a 1.25% increase in National Insurance from April 2022 to address the funding crisis in the health and social care system.

From October 2023, no one starting care in England will be forced to spend more than £86,000 over their lifetime, Boris Johnson said, telling MPs he would protect people from the “catastrophic fear of losing everything”.

The Prime Minister has also announced the Government will begin the “biggest catch up programme” in the health service’s history.

He told MPs: “Today we are beginning the biggest catch up programme in NHS history, capping the Covid backlogs by increasing hospital capacity to 110% and enabling 9 million more appointments, scans and operations.

“As a result, while waiting lists will get worse before they get better, the NHS will aim to be treating around 30% more elective patients by 2024-2025 than before Covid. And we will also fix the long-term problems of health and social care that the party opposite certainly failed to tackle.”

Boris Johnson accepted his plans broke his 2019 election manifesto pledges but he blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for the change of approach.

The Prime Minister told MPs: “No Conservative government ever wants to raise taxes and I’ll be honest with the House, I accept that this breaks a manifesto commitment – which is not something I do lightly."

“But a global pandemic was in no-one’s manifesto, Mr Speaker."

“I think the people of this country understand that in their bones and they can see the enormous steps that this Government and the Treasury have taken.”

He went on: “This is the right, the reasonable and the fair approach – enabling our amazing NHS to come back strongly from the crisis, tackling the Covid backlogs, funding our nurses, making sure people get the care and treatment they need in the right place at the right time, and ending a chronic and unfair anxiety for millions of people and their families up and down this country.”