Sharjah24 – AFP: Breaking an election pledge not to raise taxes, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced hefty new funding to fix a social care crisis and a pandemic surge in hospital waiting lists.
The government said the tax hike brings Britain into line with France, Germany and Japan, which have all raised social insurance levies to help care for ageing populations.
Johnson conceded that the 1.25 percent levy on UK national insurance contributions -- paid both by workers and their employers -- violated Conservative manifesto promises ahead of the December 2019 election.
"No Conservative government wants to raise taxes," he told a news conference, after an uproar among many of his backbenchers and reports of a cabinet rift over the plan.
At the weekend, senior minister Jacob Rees-Mogg recalled George H.W. Bush's declaration in 1988: "Read my lips: no new taxes."
Bush broke his pledge and lost the US presidential election four years later.
But arguing "Covid wasn't in our manifesto either", Johnson said "nor could we in good conscience meet the cost of this plan simply by borrowing the money and imposing the burden on future generations".
The coronavirus pandemic has fuelled a record backlog of 5.5 million routine procedures on the state-run National Health Service (NHS), rising to 13 million by the end of the year if left unchecked, the government said.
It announced an initial package of £5.4 billion (6.3 billion euros, $7.5 billion) in extra funding for the NHS to help clear the backlog over the coming months.
The new national insurance levy will then raise £36 billion over the next three years for the NHS, before it is targeted directly to funding elderly care.
While national insurance is paid by all UK workers except the low-paid, the government said a 1.25 percent levy would also be slapped on share dividends, to capture the better-off who rely on investments for income.
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