Next boss Lord Wolfson has used his position in the House of Lords to lodge amendments to the upcoming changes to employers’ national insurance following concerns over job cuts and sharp increases in business costs.
The tax is set to increase from 13.2% to 15% in April, while the threshold will lower from £9,100 to £5,000 a year.
Wolfson, who has been the chief executive of Next since 2001, supported Baroness Noakes’s amendments to introduce “a phased introduction to the reductions to the secondary threshold” of national insurance, The Times reported.
The bill is at the committee stage in the Lords before it takes effect in April.
Wolfson as been vocal about the possible impacts on the upcoming changes to the employers’ national insurance, including raising concerns about job losses.
“The government did need to raise taxes. I’ve got nothing against lowering the threshold for NI in principle but the speed at which it is going to happen, the lack of consultation, that is the problem,” he told the BBC.
Next said at the start of the month that it will raise prices by 1% as well as introduce self-service machines across selected stores this year as it looks to mitigate the £67m set to be added to its wage bill.
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