division_name: Employer National Insurance Contributions
motion: <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">That this House regrets that increasing the rate of employers&#8217; National Insurance contributions (NICs) to 15%, and reducing the per-employee threshold at which employers become liable to pay NICs on employees&#8217; earnings to &#163;5,000, will lead to increased costs for businesses and lower wages for employees, including in particular young people; will force companies to cut employment, leading to some 130,000 job losses according to Bloomberg Economics; will increase costs for retailers by &#163;2.3 billion according to the British Retail Consortium, leading to higher prices for consumers; will create an annual additional bill of &#163;1.4 billion for charitable service providers according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, so they will struggle to maintain support for vulnerable people; and will increase childcare costs for families; further regrets that the Government has not published its complete assessment of the effect this policy will have on the public and private sector, or indeed any impact assessment; and regrets also that, as a result of the Government&#8217;s economic policies, GDP forecasts are down, inflation is up and business confidence is down.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;new partnership with business to boost growth everywhere&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Of shoes&#8212;and ships&#8212;and sealing-wax&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/7" pwmotiontext="yes">Of cabbages&#8212;and kings&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/8" pwmotiontext="yes">And why the sea is boiling hot&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b382.1/9" pwmotiontext="yes">And whether pigs have wings.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b385.2/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Labour will&#8230;support business through a stable policy environment&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b385.2/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b388.2/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;to public sector employers and adult social care&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b399.3/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;There is no magic money tree.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b405.4/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;define the character of our country.&#8221;&#8212;[Official Report, <phrase class="date" code="">17 April 2002</phrase>; Vol. 383, c. 589.]</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b408.3/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b410.2/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.&#8221;</p>