Mid Sussex MP raises financial plight of local hospice in the House of Commons

The call comes after Alison attended Sussex Chorus’s performance of Handel’s Messiah at St Andrew’s Church in Burgess Hill on Saturday 30th November.

After the performance a volunteer who was collecting donations for St Peter and St James grasped Alison’s hand and urged her, “To do something about NICs”.

This comes as the children’s hospice charity Together for Short Lives estimates that the NICs rise for 13.8% to 15% will increase children’s hospices’ costs by nearly £5 million pounds annually.

With many adults’ and children’s hospices already facing an uncertain financial outlook, the changes to National Insurance could not have come at a worse time.

Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Sussex, Alison Bennett, said: “Hospices and social care providers do hugely difficult and often invisible work. These organisations are now even more financially vulnerable than they were, because of the government’s proposed changes to Employers’ NICs. “The government’s policy risks reducing or even closing essential services in Mid Sussex and across the country.

“It isn’t right that hospices who rely overwhelmingly on fundraising rather than state support to keep going are facing yet more financial burdens. Let’s do right by those who work tirelessly to support and look after us when we are at our most vulnerable. To do so would be the mark of a society that treats everyone with the dignity that they deserve. I am urging the Labour government to think again."