Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will estimate how much it will cost to (a) draft and (b) implement the Social Security (Contributions) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2022. including the cost of the time spent by (i) officials at the Treasury, (ii) House of Commons staff and (iii) ministers in relation to these regulations.

This question was answered on 31st March 2022
HMRC expects there to be fewer than 1,000 employments that would be affected by this Statutory Instrument (SI). No breakdown is readily available to provide the data requested for this group of women.

This component of the Health and Social Care Levy (HSCL) policy is expected to have a small impact on the Exchequer. This impact is included within the wider costings of the HSCL and has not been costed separately. As the measure was announced last September, the impact of the changes contained in this SI have already been captured in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast, which was most recently updated alongside the Spring Statement. The Exchequer Impact relating more broadly to the HSCL was set out in the Spring 2022 Economic and fiscal outlook Table A.5: https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/CCS0222366764-001_OBR-EFO-March-2022_Web-Accessible-2.pdf. This SI was introduced to ensure a fair and consistent NICs system, so that those that pay NICs and benefit from additional health and social care spending, contribute.

There are no additional costs resulting from this SI as the policy to introduce this change was set out following the introduction of the HSCL Act 2021. Not proceeding with this SI would have led to reversing the changes already being implemented by HMRC and external software providers which would have resulted in costs for payroll operators and businesses.