RETAIL, hospitality and key workers will be over £1,000 worse off after the recently announced Tory tax hikes, Labour analysis has revealed.

The party found that the rise in national insurance contributions, the upcoming cut to the universal credit uplift and the proposed plans to freeze income tax personal allowances will take £1,130 away from a hospitality worker.

Key workers will lose over £1,100 a year under the Tories’ “double-whammy” of a cut to universal credit and tax hikes, its analysis found. A band five nurse will lose £1,159 next year. A social care worker will lose £1,108, a supermarket worker £1,040 and a teaching assistant £1,040.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of forcing working people to pay for the cost of the latter’s failure, saying that the Conservatives are “putting the very wealthiest ahead of working people who have to pick up the bill.”

He said: “The Conservatives’ plans to impose unfair taxes are an attack on working people and an attack on the key worker heroes who have got our country through the pandemic.”

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, who was a care worker before becoming an MP, has said it was “plain wrong” that care workers on the minimum wage will pay more tax for the care they were providing, but the landlord that they pay rent to every month “won’t pay a penny more.”

She said: “Our key worker heroes need a pay rise, not a tax rise. The Prime Minister does not care about working people and he makes that clear time and time again.

“He is out of touch and out of ideas, leaving working people footing the bill while the very wealthiest in our society are left untouched.”

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The Prime Minister is raiding the pockets of low-paid workers while leaving the wealthy barely touched.

“And the private equity magnate who profits from asset-stripping care homes to sell doesn’t have to contribute anything more. This is clearly wrong.

“It’s time to raise taxes on wealth to fund social care properly and guarantee decent pay for all social care workers.” 

Unite national officer for the hospitality sector Dave Turnbull warned that government plans will have a further impact on the post-Brexit recruitment and retention crisis facing the retail and hospitality sector which, in turn, will impact the recovery of tourism, leisure and hospitality.