BORIS HIT BY CABINET SPLIT ON TAX HIKE AND COST OF LIVING

A CABINET clash over the looming cost-of-living crisis exploded in public today with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps forced to defend a planned rise in National Insurance to tackle the NHS backlog and social care reforms.

- David Bond, Nicholas Cecil and Rachael Burford

Just hours after fellow Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg pushed for April’s 1.25-point rise to be shelved to ease the financial pain facing millions of families, Mr Shapps stressed the Government had made its decision on how to raise £12 billion more for the NHS and social care. Emphasising the collective responsibility of decisions taken by Cabinet, Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We made the decision as a Government to look after those things and we have said how we are going to do it, which is a National Insurance increase.” However, a number of Tory MPs are understood to support Mr Rees-Mogg’s intervention, including former Brexit Secretary David Davis and “red wall” MP Dehenna Davison, who told the Standard this morning that the rise in NI should be scrapped, raising the prospect of further backbench unrest for Boris Johnson.