Plans to hike national insurance contributions were passed by the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Under the proposals, Reading residents earning over £9,568 a year will have to pay 1.25 per cent more from April 2022 to fund health and social care.

Around £36bn would be raised through the tax in its first three years, but only £5.3billion will be spent on social care, with much of the rest going to the NHS to increase hospital capacity and for more appointments, scans and operations following Covid-19 backlogs.

The balance is expected to tip towards social care in subsequent years after an £86,000 cap is introduced from October 2023 on the amount of money someone can be expected to pay towards their day-to-day care.

Reading Chronicle:

Criticisms of the move have been made from across the political spectrum, including that the money may never reach social care, instead being swallowed by the NHS, or accusations that the tax will unfairly hit young, working people at the start of their careers.

Boris Johnson defended his proposal as dealing with “the catastrophic costs faced by millions of people” paying for social care with their homes, possessions and savings.

Reading Chronicle readers were equally split over the issue, with some arguing tax should be generated from corporations while others said they were happy to pay more.

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One user commented on Facebook: “The right thing to do in my opinion. The government supported everyone through the pandemic and we all knew it would have to paid for.”

“About time. Yes it will affect me. But let's hope I can be looked after if I need it,” another user concurred.

A man wrote: “Probably reasonable enough in these difficult circumstances, but when a party has made a specific manifesto promise not to increase taxes, it's understandable that doing the exact opposite will cause ill-feeling.”

That ill-feeling was shared by a number of people, with some calling into question why social care was not being funded by the supposed extra £350m a week that Vote Leave suggested the NHS could benefit from post-Brexit. 

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One man said: “It’s the fact that the little man gets taxed again when the big boys and corporations don’t that makes people angry.”

“You could always tax wealth rather than work,” a different user agreed.

Another commented: “Won’t affect the wealthy people but what about people on low incomes it will affect them and perhaps we should get pay rise to cover it? Everything going up except wages.”

A user said: “I think the idea of capping the amount a family is liable for towards care costs is sound. I worked hard all my life and so did my wife so when we pop out clogs, we hope to leave something to our children and not have everything swallowed up by care costs.

"I think income tax would have been a fairer way to raise the money though as you still pay National Insurance on minimum wage".