It's been almost a year since the then Chancellor, George Osborne, announced a change in national insurance contributions (NICs). We have now had his successor announcing changes to the rates of NICs paid by the self employed and the PM, Theresa May suggesting these changes may now be delayed. Lost among the political furore of these latest developments is a question as to the very purpose of national insurance.

When it was originally introduced, and in decades past, it was seen as the ‘tax’, although few politicians seemed willing to call it a ‘tax’, which funded various state benefits, starting with the state pension back in Lloyd George’s time.

Chancellors such as the current incumbent Philip Hammond and Gordon Brown have sought to remind us of this link, usually when they are seeking to justify increases in NIC rates. However, looking closer, that link, if it ever existed, certainly does not seem to exist today. There is no ringfencing or hypothecation of NICs to particular state benefits and, in reality, national insurance is just another tax on income.