Senior Tory MP Robert Halfon has urged the Government to “think again” about hiking National Insurance to boost health funding.
This comes after the news that the Prime Minister and Chancellor have doubled down on the controversial planned tax hike to boost health funding, after it was reported that Boris Johnson was “wobbling” on the policy.
Mr Halfon, the chairman of the Commons Education Committee, told BBC Breakfast:“All I can do as an MP, a backbench MP, is just to urge the Government to think again.”
He added: “I hope that the Government make cost of living the number one priority.”
The former minister reiterated calls for the Government to look at different ways to raise the money that the rise is forecast to produce, such as a “windfall tax on big business”.
Mr Halfon said he was not “agitating against the Prime Minister” and would “certainly” not be handing in a letter of no confidence to the 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady.
“I just want the Government to go back to being the Government that was elected in 2019 and put cutting the cost of living first and foremost, and helping struggling families across the country,” he said.
