National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 1B

Parliament voted on 25 March 2025 to reject Lords Amendment 1B to the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill, passing the motion to disagree by 312 votes to 190. The amendment, which the House of Lords had sent back to the Commons, sought to create a power to exempt health and social care providers, including GP practices, NHS-commissioned dentists and pharmacists, care providers, and charitable providers of palliative care, from the employer National Insurance contribution increases contained in the Bill. The government successfully defeated this amendment, clearing one of the final legislative hurdles before the Bill becomes law.

The Bill raises employer secondary Class 1 National Insurance contributions from 13.8% to 15% and simultaneously lowers the threshold at which employers begin paying those contributions from £9,100 to £5,000 per year. The government has already committed to compensating public sector bodies, including NHS England, local government, and public corporations, for the increased costs they face. The Lords amendment would have extended similar protection to private and charitable providers that deliver NHS-commissioned services. Opponents of the amendment argue this creates an anomaly: hospices, care homes, GP surgeries, and community pharmacies face the full cost of the rise despite functioning as integral parts of the health and care system. Supporters of the government's position maintain that the approach follows the same model used for previous National Insurance changes, and that the government has separately provided £100 million for adult and children's hospice facilities alongside £26 million in revenue funding for children's and young people's hospices.

Labour and Labour Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour of rejecting the amendment, contributing 311 of the 312 Aye votes. Every Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National Party, Democratic Unionist Party, Plaid Cymru, and Reform UK MP who voted did so against the government. There were no notable Labour rebels. One independent MP voted with the government. The vote sat within a broader pattern of the Lords and Commons exchanging amendments in what is known as parliamentary ping-pong, with the Lords having returned amended versions of provisions the Commons had already rejected in an earlier round.