Income tax likely to go up if national insurance scrapped, Hunt suggests

Labour says chancellor's ambition to eventually abolish NI would cost 46bn a year, and party questions how move would be paid for

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Income tax may eventually have to be raised to pay for abolishing national insurance, Jeremy Hunt has suggested the day after delivering the government's spring budget.

The chancellor spent about 10bn to cut NI by 2p in the budget, and has indicated that the government's eventual ambition is to scrap the tax entirely.