He has warned of hundreds of possible job losses among youth homelessness charities due to the employer national insurance hike in the latest Budget:
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her autumn statement that the rate of employer national insurance would rise from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent in April next year.
The secondary threshold, meaning the level at which employers start paying the tax on each employee’s salary, will also be reduced from £9,100 a year to £5,000.
Mr Connolly said EveryYouth’s network of youth homelessness charities across the UK is set to lose £1.73m from collective budgets – the equivalent of axing more than 60 frontline workers from the network’s government-funded services.
“Our services have already been cut down to the bone,” he told The Independent. “There is already a very minimal standard of support available, and this national insurance increase will only make the charities’ situation worse.
“This will affect the network’s ability to help young people learn independent living skills and navigate the transition to adulthood.
“It will also make it more difficult to provide additional wrap-around support, addressing childhood trauma and educational deficits, which is funded by donors and is essential if we want our most disadvantaged young people to thrive.”
The charity network has helped 327 people aged between 16 and 25 move into a home this year and has assisted a further 564 young people into employment.
Mr Connolly has called on the government to protect youth homelessness services from the national insurance increase and requested an urgent meeting with the deputy prime minister.
“The young people we support are some of the most disadvantaged in the country, and a very high proportion are care leavers,” he wrote in the letter. “Many are neurodiverse and have faced discrimination due to their sexuality, gender identification, or race. It cannot be right that the overall increase in investment in public services results in the most vulnerable young people being penalised.”
This is yet another example of the impact that Labour's employers' national insurance hike is going to have on the third sector and key services for disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals. How can they justify allowing these organisations to go to the wall, like this?
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