A prominent Labour backbencher has broken with Government policy at the party conference by calling for the abolition of National Insurance contributions.
Chris Curtis, MP for Milton Keynes North, told delegates that the UK’s taxation structure requires fundamental reform and should eliminate National Insurance entirely.
Mr Curtis said: “I think Jeremy Hunt was probably right about getting rid of National Insurance. But we’d pay for it by increasing income tax. The move towards simplification is good.”
His proposal stands in contrast to the Government’s current stance on the levy, which funds state benefits and pensions through deductions from workers’ earnings.
The move marks an internal challenge to Treasury policy, emerging from within Labour’s own ranks.
Mr Curtis delivered his remarks at a taxation and spending event organised by the charity Nesta.
He was joined by fellow MP Yuan Yang from Earley and Woodley, who also called for reform of the tax system.
The Milton Keynes North MP cited a recent Resolution Foundation analysis to support his proposal.
Chris Curtis MP defies party stance at conference, calling for sweeping overhaul of the UK tax system
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Parliament/PA
The think tank suggested that shifting Britain’s tax burden from National Insurance to income tax could generate an additional £6billion in revenue.
The Resolution Foundation said: “The previous Chancellor Jeremy Hunt rightly identified an unfair double tax on work from employee National Insurance and income tax, and the current Chancellor should continue to tackle this unfairness by switching the UK’s tax base away from the former and on to the latter.”
The report noted that such a shift would increase contributions from groups currently exempt from employee National Insurance.
These include pensioners, property landlords and self-employed individuals.
The intervention represents a challenge to Treasury policy from within Labour’s own ranks.
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PAMr Curtis pressed Chancellor Rachel Reeves to embrace ambitious fiscal reforms in her forthcoming Budget.
He said: “When you’ve got no easy decisions, you might as well make the right ones. We should try to raise more [revenue] than we need to and build more of a headroom than we’ve had in the past.”
Mr Curtis serves as co-chairman of the Labour Growth Group, an influential bloc of more than 50 MPs pressing the Prime Minister to prioritise economic expansion.
The faction counts among its members Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, and Liam Byrne, who served as chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown.
A Labour source described the group to the New Statesman as “basically a pro-Starmer WhatsApp group,” underlining its alignment with the party leadership on most issues.
Housing development forms a central pillar of their growth strategy.
Mr Curtis’s remarks at conference showed his willingness to challenge conventional Treasury thinking.
He said: “We should use the Budget as an opportunity to make some of the bold or radical changes to the tax system that we haven’t had the political bravery to do in the past.”
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Jeremy Hunt was Liz Truss’s Chancellor
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PALabour’s position on National Insurance has shifted since last year.
In 2024, the party opposed Conservative plans to abolish the levy, with Sir Keir Starmer dismissing Jeremy Hunt’s ambition as an “unfunded pledge” that would jeopardise pension provision.
Mr Hunt, who served as chancellor under the previous Government, had backed abolishing National Insurance but said this would only happen when economic conditions permitted.
Labour strongly resisted the plan, making it a key part of their parliamentary opposition.