Farron welcomes government U-Turn on self-employment tax hike

South Lakeland MP Tim Farron has welcomed the government's decision today to U-turn on last week's budget and scrap plans to hit self-employed workers with a tax-hike.

There are around 30,000 self-employed workers across Cumbria, who had been bracing themselves for increases to their national insurance contributions which would have seen an average of £240 added to their tax bill. The changes were announced in the budget despite an explicit promise in the Conservative manifesto not to increase national insurance contributions.

Tim said: "I welcome this U-turn, scrapping a policy which would have hit tens of thousands of hard-working people across Cumbria. While the government cuts taxes for big business, it wanted to slap tradespeople, farmers, and entrepreneurs with an additional tax hike. It was right to ditch these plans.

"The government must now take a long hard look at its other plans. Cumbrian schools face a £23million cut by 2020 while local health and care services are being forced to cut £572million by 2021. The government has decided to protect White Van Man - it must now look after our schools and NHS too, and reverse plans for massive cuts."