"I Might As Well Be Talking To A Labour Chancellor"

9 March 2017, 08:28 | Updated: 9 March 2017, 16:16

Chancellor Philip Hammond was given a rough ride by Nick Ferrari following the controversial Budget raid on self-employed people.

Nick told Mr Hammond that he might as well be talking to a Labour Chancellor after the policies hit hard-working plumbers, electricians and builders.

But the Chancellor rejected the claims that he's punishing self-employed people.

Nick told the Chancellor: "If you look at newspapers such as the Daily Mail, which calls your budget disingenuous, The Telegraph which claims that you put people at peril, The Sun which says `terrible way to Phil, using your first name, Phil the coffers. They're all united in their anger.

"Meanwhile the Guardian calls you brave. You've got this wrong, haven't you Chancellor? You've betrayed the core Tory vote Chancellor."

But Mr Hammond responded: "Nobody, especially a Conservative politician likes raising any taxes, but this is an issue of basic fairness. We have to raise from somewhere the revenue that we need in order to invest in our social care, invest in the National Health Service and most importantly yesterday, invest in the future of our country by providing better skills, better training for our young people.

"And when we have to raise that revenue, we have to do it in a way that enhances the fairness of the tax system and the gap between the National Insurance contributions that the employed and the self-employed pay is now no longer justifiable by the difference in the state benefits that they receive.

"The self-employed are now able to get the full state pension in a way that they never used to be since April 2016 and the gap is no longer justified."