Roger Daltrey has criticised Chancellor Rachel Reeves, warning her Budget tax hikes may force cancer charities to get rid of specialist nursing staff.
The Who singer and Teenage Cancer Trust patron cautioned that Labour’s announcement could have “catastrophic effects” on cancer charities.
The Chancellor unveiled an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent starting in April as part of her plan to raise £40bn through taxes.
The threshold at which employers begin paying the tax on each employee’s salary will also drop from £9,100 a year to £5,000.
Daltrey, whose band has performed concerts to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust, said the change could force charities to make difficult decisions.
“If we can’t raise more money we will have to lay people off,” he told The Daily Telegraph, expressing that he did not “like to think about the consequences” of losing specialist nurses.
He added: “To lose nurses would be catastrophic.”
Daltrey noted that charities like the Teenage Cancer Trust, Marie Curie Hospices, and Macmillan Cancer Support relieve “an awful lot of burden off the NHS,” and criticised the national insurance increase as having “so little thought behind it.”
He said: “I’m incredibly angry because the Government is just throwing money at the NHS thinking that will solve all the problems, which it quite clearly won’t, and it’s being funded partly by taking money from charities like ours.”
The 80-year-old singer, awarded a CBE in 2005 for his contributions to music and charity, mentioned plans to invite Health Secretary Wes Streeting to visit one of the trust’s 28 specialist units to see firsthand the vital work of healthcare charities.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) estimated that the increase in national insurance contributions would cost the charity sector—employing approximately 3% of the UK workforce—around £1.4 billion annually.
NCVO chief executive Sarah Elliott said the planned increase would be “absolutely unsustainable” for many charities.
“Charities across the country are already in a dire situation, juggling a triple threat of rising demand, escalating costs and falling funding,” she said. “This additional cost, for which there is no headroom in budgets to cover, will be devastating.”
