Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to reports that the increase in employee national insurance contributions will cost health and social care workers an additional £900 million annually from April 2022, what estimate he has made of the overall increase to salary costs in the NHS, attributable to increased employer contributions as a result of that rise.

The Government has compensated Departments and other public sector employers in England for the increased cost of the levy, including NHS England and NHS Improvement and provided Barnett consequentials on this funding to the devolved administrations. The autumn Budget set out that the cost of this across public sector employers is approximately £1.7 billion to £1.8 billion a year overall. The amount the National Health Service will be compensated by will be proportional to the NHS paybill and NHS England and NHS Improvement will prepare and communicate its allocations to individual organisations and services in due course.