Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)

Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, seeks to establish a relief for early years settings, universities, charities and small businesses. These are all important sectors; they will be hit hard by the Government’s jobs tax, so we agree with the sentiments that she expressed. However, we have concerns about the financial implication of relief for all these sectors in one amendment. We are instead promoting some modest and separate amendments, which I am afraid makes for a big group. Amendments 4, 14, 21 and 28 in my name would exempt charities with an annual revenue of less than £1 million from the increase in employer national insurance contributions. My noble friend Lord Leigh spoke persuasively in favour of this proposal, following the pre-emption of his own amendments. My Amendment 35 proposes an increased level of employment allowance for charities. Noble Lords across the House have been contacted by many charities which are facing tough financial decisions. We have had many worrying examples throughout the stages of this Bill. My noble friends Lady Sater and Lady Fraser made the case for action strongly. My latest example was L’Arche in the UK, which brings together people with and without learning disabilities in life-sharing communities. Again, they are facing hugely steep rises in employment costs. The most vulnerable people in our society will pay the price for Ministers’ misguided Budget decisions. Amendment 5 seeks to protect children with special educational needs or disabilities. I know that the Licensed Private Hire Car Association SEND transport operators group has written to many noble Lords highlighting the issues that families who rely on these services are facing. It estimates that the associated local funding shortfall in the next tax year, 2025-26, in respect of the services it contracts out to private providers, will be £40 million. That is a relatively small number compared with the overall revenue expected from the jobs tax— £23 billion to £26 billion, depending on the year—but the impact on vulnerable children is wildly disproportionate to that revenue. Like my noble friend Lady Fraser, we feel very strongly that these vital services should be protected. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, we prefer our formulation on SEND. Finally, my Amendment 33 addresses early years provision by seeking to increase the employment allowance for early years providers. In government, we took strong action to support the early years sector, while expanding the free childcare offer to all children under five in England last year. The Government are right to adopt our expansion plan in full. We are grateful for that. However, some providers are worried that they will not be able to access the employment allowance because of the public work they do. It would be good if the Minister could look at that again. We are seeing very big cost increases in early years provision, which is extremely worrying. In conclusion, the Official Opposition feel that the Government must change their approach. We are not satisfied by the Minister’s responses so far and our current intention is to divide on Amendments 4, 5 and 33.