What time is the Boris Johnson press conference today and what will he say?
7 September 2021, 11:23
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to hold a press conference from Downing Street later today (September 7).
Boris Johnson will deliver a press conference today where he is expected to update the public on plans for a tax hike to pay for for social care.
The Prime Minister will be joined by Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid are expected to join the Prime Minister for the press briefing on Tuesday evening.
They are expected to announce a plan to raise National Insurance contributions, which are paid only by working-age people, by 1.25%. For someone earning £30,000 a year, it would cost them around £250 extra annually.
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What time is the press conference this evening?
Boris Johnson's House of Commons announcement is expected to take place at around 12:30pm after a cabinet meeting. It it not known what time the press conference will take place, but these are usually at around 5pm.
The potential National Insurance tax hike would break a Tory Manifesto commitment from the last election.
When quizzed about reports of the tax hike over the weekend, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said that he would not 'speculate', but added that there should be a "grown-up conversation" about how to pay for rising social care costs.
He told BBC Breakfast: "The British public are sensible enough to know that when it comes to the issue of social care we have to find some way in which it will be adequately funded."
As reported by the Mirror, Boris Johnson has said that the NHS ‘cannot recover’ from the pandemic without a huge cash injection, and added that said it was time to end the scandal of older people having to sell their homes to fund care in later life.
He said: "We must act now to ensure the health and care system has the long term funding it needs to continue fighting Covid and start tackling the backlogs, and end the injustice of catastrophic costs for social care.
"My Government will not duck the tough decisions needed to get NHS patients the treatment they need and to fix our broken social care system."
