UNIONS do not agree with the Labour increase to National Insurance contributions, Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan told the Prison Officers’ Association’s annual conference today.

Mr Whelan, who chairs the Tulo group of 11 Labour-affiliated unions, said he shared concerns over the £40 billion tax rise as he said that the government should ”not put the pain on the workers.”

“We didn’t elect you for more of the same,” he warned Labour from the Eastbourne conference.

“We do not agree with your stance on the winter fuel allowance, we do not agree with what you’re doing on PIP [personal independence payments], we do not agree with what you’re doing with cuts to services.

“I was proud to stand in Birmingham with the bin workers the other day while they would take eight grand a year from a person who drives a lorry.

“Don’t put the pain on the workers, put it where it should be: on the Googles, on the Amazons, on the transnationals, make the people who don’t, pay tax.

“Don’t take it out on people who pay tax on NI — give them the disposal income that will drive their local economy, will drive the national economy, that will allow people to have a dignity in what they do.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised the rate of employers’ NI contributions from 13.8 to 15 per cent in April, while lowering the threshold at which they start to pay them.

Mr Whelan also criticised the government’s failure to repeal a ban on prison officer strikes in England and Wales.

“I apologise today and every day in the future until you have the same rights as we do because it’s wrong,” he said.