Member

I believe that a full impact analysis should have been prepared, given the potential impact of the national insurance changes on employment costs and levels, prices, profit margins, and of course growth. All the business groups are saying that the impact of the national insurance changes on businesses will be significant and negative. There will be impacts on many businesses of all sizes, but in particular, as we have heard, on small and medium-sized businesses, which are what my amendment focuses on. The OBR has made calculations of the direct and indirect effects of the Bill, to work out the benefit to the public finances. However, as we debated on the first day in Committee, that analysis is at a macro level and does not cast light at all on the impact on different sizes or types of businesses.