What does the pledge mean?

In full, the headline pledge on tax in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto reads: “Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT.”

Exactly how this pledge should be interpreted has been the subject of much debate. There’s a lot to unpick, so our Government Tracker is monitoring progress on the different elements of this pledge separately. Here we look at the commitment on National Insurance—we’re also monitoring the commitments on working people, income tax and VAT.

National Insurance contributions (NICs) are paid by both employees and employers—and whether Labour’s manifesto pledge to “not increase National Insurance” applied to both these groups has been fiercely disputed.

Labour’s manifesto did not specify whether its commitment referred to both employees and employers’ NICs, or just one of these (though during the election campaign the Conservatives interpreted it as only applying to the former). The commitment appears to be part of the wider pledge to not increase taxes on “working people”, a term which isn’t explained in the manifesto and which Labour politicians have subsequently failed to consistently define.

Labour’s manifesto also did not specify whether its commitment only applied to rates of National Insurance, or if it also included National Insurance thresholds (by contrast, it did refer specifically to ”rates” of income tax). Thresholds affect the amount of someone’s income that is taxable—freezing or lowering these thresholds means that people pay more tax than they otherwise would have done were the thresholds to have increased in line with inflation, as is the norm.

As of November 2025, the government is now claiming that the manifesto commitment only applied to the rate of employee NICs, even though this wasn’t spelled out in its wording.

Because the manifesto did not clearly explain its commitments on National Insurance and working people, there has been much confusion and controversy over what its tax pledges actually meant.

This kind of ambiguity isn’t good enough—as we’ve written elsewhere, commitments that are subject to interpretation are a recipe for confusion, and risk fuelling cynicism among voters. As we set out in our manifesto standards ahead of the election, manifestos should define things clearly and consistently and be phrased in a way that a reasonable person is likely to understand.

We’ve assumed this pledge can be read as a commitment which lasts throughout this parliament.

What progress has been made?

Labour has taken two major decisions on National Insurance which have led to some claiming it has broken its manifesto pledge—raising the rate of employers’ NICs at its first Budget in October 2024, and extending the freeze in employee and employer NIC thresholds at its second Budget in November 2025.

The increase in the rate of employers’ NICs came into effect on 6 April 2025, alongside a reduction in the threshold at which employers begin paying contributions on employee earnings.

Some, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank, argued that the increase in employers’ NICs represented a breach of Labour’s commitment, as the manifesto didn’t specify that it only applied to employee NICs.

In October 2024 the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast that from 2026/27 onwards approximately 76% of the employers’ NICs increase will be ultimately passed on to employees in the form of lower wages—so while the amount of NICs taken from employees payslips has not increased, many will likely still be impacted by changes to employers’ NICs. In addition, it’s been pointed out that some workers employed by “umbrella companies” will see the increase in employer NICs taken directly from their earnings.

Labour however has argued that its commitment not to increase National Insurance applied to “working people”, not employers, and that the amount of tax this group pays is not directly impacted by the change. Because of the ambiguity over the meaning of the pledge, we rated it as ‘Unclear or disputed’ following the 2024 Budget.

In its 2025 Budget the government then announced that NICs thresholds for both employees and employers would remain frozen for a further three years until April 2031, having previously been frozen under the last government until April 2028.

This means that from April 2028 people will pay more NICs in their payslips than they otherwise would have, were thresholds to have begun increasing in line with inflation again.

The government has argued that this does not break the promise in Labour’s manifesto, insisting the commitment on National Insurance only applied to the rate of employee NICs.

But this was not specified in the manifesto, which only said Labour would “not increase National Insurance”. This has led others, such as the IFS, to conclude that extending the threshold freezes is a manifesto breach.

What’s more, in her 2024 Budget speech the chancellor Rachel Reeves appeared to say extending threshold freezes would breach Labour’s manifesto commitment, telling MPs: “I have come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips.

“I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto, so there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and national insurance thresholds.” We’ve written more about this here.

Finally, the 2025 Budget introduced a new cap on NIC-exempt salary sacrifice contributions from April 2029 which means workers who contribute more than £2,000 a year will begin paying National Insurance on the amount over the cap. The IFS has said it believes this too breaches Labour’s commitment to “not increase National Insurance”.

Because the government isn’t disputing that working people will pay more tax as a result of these changes, and the fact that Labour’s manifesto only referred generally to not increasing “National Insurance” for “working people” (unlike its commitment on income tax, which specifically referred to “rates”) we’re now rating this pledge, as well as Labour’s wider commitment to not increase taxes on working people, as ‘Not kept’.

It’s worth noting that these changes will only impact people from April 2028. We’ll re-assess our verdict if the government reverses its decision before then.