Richard Fuller

I will make a bit more progress and then give way to my right hon. Friend. If the Minister does not like the Resolution Foundation’s judgment on this tax, he should just listen to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said: “Simple economic theory suggests that the incidence of employer NICs and employee NICs should be the same, at least in the long run. It is likely that the long-run incidence of both employer and employee NICs is predominantly on employees”. The measures in the Bill represent by far the largest part of the tax grab in the October Budget. The Treasury Red Book assesses that these measures will raise £23.7 billion in the next financial year, rising to £25.7 billion, but the Minister knows that behavioural changes means that they will actually raise substantially less; the IFS estimates about £16 billion. I note that in the Red Book there were three opportunities for this jobs tax to be referred to as “Delivering on our Promises”. There is: “Delivering on our Promises—New Policy to Close the Tax Gap”, “Delivering on our Promises—Collecting Tax That is Due” and even the catch-all: “Delivering on our Promises—Other Manifesto Tax Commitments”, but the increase in national insurance contributions cannot be included in any of those, because Labour politicians hid their intentions from the British voters at the election.