Keir Starmer warned that this Budget would be ‘painful’ in the weeks leading up to the unveiling of his and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first budgetary statement.

Facing a £22 billion black hole in public finances, some pain was perhaps inevitable, and Starmer and Reeves have shown that they are not afraid to be unpopular among UK businesses by firmly shifting that pain on to employers rather than employees.

The Budget headline is, of course, the double modification made to employers’ national insurance contributions. Employers currently pay 13.8% on worker earnings above £175 per week, but by raising the percentage to 15% and lowering the threshold to £96.15 per week, the new Labour government is expected to raise about £25 billion to plug that black hole.

The doubling of the........

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