Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan has voted against Conservative moves to raise National Insurance by 1.25% for working families and businesses, slamming the government for “placing an enormous burden on hard working people”.
The party have strongly opposed the unfair jobs tax saying that it is the biggest rise in taxes on families for over 50 years, and the third tax rise in recent months from the Conservatives, following rises in council tax and personal allowances – and they slammed the fact the jobs tax still doesn’t prevent people having to sell their home to receive care.
Mr Morgan made it clear that under a Labour government, the wealthiest would be asked to contribute more, that any changes should be fair across generations, and that all forms of income are considered – including those with large portfolios of shares, dividends and property.
He also made it clear that, unlike the Tories, Labour would deal with both cash and care by:
- Giving older and disabled people the chance to live the life they choose, shifting the focus of support towards prevention and early help.
- A guiding principle of ‘home first’ – because that’s what the overwhelming majority of people want; and
- Building a strong and skilled social care workforce, with a new deal for care workers to create a well-motivated, skilled and properly rewarded workforce, with more support for unpaid carers.
Since being elected, the local MP has made social care a priority. In May he wrote to the Prime Minister to demand Boris Johnson set out his long-awaited plan. He has since set-up a City-wide survey and is hosting round tables with service providers and care users this week to determine what practical actions can be taken immediately to improve local services.
Stephen Morgan MP said:
“This manifesto-breaking, unfair tax on jobs is not the way to fix the social care crisis,
“This is a tax rise that means a landlord renting out dozens of properties in Portsmouth wouldn’t pay a penny more, but their tenants working full time jobs would.
“It’s a tax rise that means a poorly paid care worker in our City will pay more tax for the care they are providing without a penny more in their pay packet.
“Labour wants to tackle the social care crisis – we’ve started to set out our ambitious plans and offered to work with government to fix this now – but the lack of any real plan and taxing working families and businesses is just not the way to do it.”
