A rise in employers’ National Insurance in Labour’s first Budget would be “another blow” to small businesses, according to the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper.
She said on GB News: “Many of us are very concerned about the state of the economy that the Conservatives have left.
“Thanks to the Conservatives, our economy has effectively been flat-lining, and we have families all around the country still struggling with a cost of living crisis.
“At the same time, the Conservatives put our taxes up to record levels and people feel as though our public services are on their knees.
“The Labour government has got a terrible inheritance, but what we have said as a party is that in order to get growth and to build our economy, we want to see the government investing in health and social care.
“Health and wealth are two sides of the same coin and only if we can help people get back to work and access the care that they need can we then get the economy moving again.
“But at the same time, we also want to protect small businesses as well and we are concerned by rumours that the government may be thinking about increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions
“We Liberal Democrats believe that small businesses are the engine of our economy and we really need to be using and empowering, incentivising small businesses not delivering another blow and another piece of red tape that’s going to make it harder for them to invest in their small businesses and to keep our communities alive.”
She also outlined the party’s policy to tackle issues with water companies: “If you look at England, Wales and Scotland, all three nations have very different structures for their water companies.
“Some are privatised, some are nationalised, some are non-profit. And in fact, sewage dumping has been a major problem across all three nations.
“So, what we have said is that we want to see a new model where these companies would be turned into public benefit companies.
“The real thing about a public benefit company is that the companies would be required in law to meet environmental principles and deliver on those before they can make any profit and we think that that is the best model to tackle this issue.”
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