Victoria Atkins

The hon. Lady is new to her place. As Financial Secretary to the Treasury I used to collect taxes for the United Kingdom and as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care I used to spend pretty much all of them, so I know that the £500 million that the Government have score-carded this increase as achieving by the end of the score-card period will buy a fraction of what the NHS needs on a daily basis, let alone annually. If you believe the Whips’ handouts, the difficulty is that they sometimes get you into trouble. For that matter, the phrase “working people” also includes our rural publicans. Labour Members are very proud of their Chancellor taking a penny off a pint. Yet any rural publican will tell you that will not even touch the sides alongside the NICs tax hike. Sadly, Labour’s jobs tax will see higher prices, fewer staff and more pub closures. The jobs tax is also hurting our frontline services. GP surgeries, care homes, hospices, pharmacies and dental practices will all see their costs rise, and some will close. That hurts in a city centre, but it is devastating in communities who live with the impacts of rural sparsity, where it is more expensive to deliver services.