Labour’s general election manifesto was clear. “Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase national insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.”

If you take it literally, that promise has already been broken: national insurance contributions (NICs) made by employers were hiked at last year’s Budget , imposing additional costs on businesses of more than £20bn a year.

The Government got away with that by pointing to the first half of the sentence – the fact that the pledge applied to “working people”, meaning that employer NICs were not covered.

Nevertheless, firms inadvertently passed on some of the extra costs to workers or consumers through lower wages and higher prices. New Feature

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