Rishi Sunak's £900 tax cut for workers claim 'missing key context'

Rishi Sunak's claim at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday that workers are receiving a £900 tax cut thanks to recent changes has been criticised by a fact-checking organisation, which has said that many workers will still be worse off.

With a General Election looming later this year, the Prime Minister repeatedly avoided questions from Sir Keir Starmer on immigration and touted the sharp fall in inflation and changes made by the Chancellor in the Spring Budget and Autumn Statement, including changes to National Insurance Contributions (NICs) that will see "taxes cut by £900".

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a reduction in NICs in the Spring Budget that would see the average worker earning £35,000 paying £900 less in tax. But independent fact-checkers Full Fact have questioned this figure, saying that Rishi Sunak's statement in the House of Commons was "missing key context".

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With income tax thresholds remaining frozen since the then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak froze them in 2021, rather than rising with wage growth, many people are already paying more tax on their income - which for some cancels out any benefit from the cut to NICs.

In a fact-check responding to PMQs, Full Fact said: “This figure refers specifically to savings from recently announced reductions to National Insurance contributions. It doesn’t factor in the impact of ongoing tax threshold freezes.

“£900 a year is the amount an employee on the average full-time salary (about £35,000) will save in National Insurance contributions (NICs) due to the four percentage point reduction.

“But once the impact of all tax changes are factored in, the Institute for Fiscal