It will put more money in people’s pockets. It will improve the incentives to work. And it will put down a marker that the party does still believe taxes can occasionally be cut. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is not the world’s finest speech-maker, but he will probably attempt a few rhetorical flourishes when he cuts 2 per cent off the rate of National Insurance in his Budget later today. The trouble is, it is going to prove a damp squib, and not least because it has been widely trailed in advance. In reality, a modest reduction in National Insurance is not going to save the Conservative party from defeat at the looming election. It is too late for that now.

In reality, a cut in NI is largely irrelevant to the mess the UK economy is in

Today is not going to be the kind of big, giveaway Budget that some MPs might have hoped for. If everything had gone to plan, inflation would be falling rapidly by now, interest rates would be coming down, and the economy would be reviving, setting the stage for major tax cuts for Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take into the general election. Instead, inflation has remained higher than expected, and so have interest rates, while a technical recession means less tax revenue. The result? There is hardly any money to play with, and a modest cut in National Insurance is all that Hunt can afford.

And yet, there are two big problems with cutting National Insurance. It does not have the same kind of visceral impact as cutting the basic rate of income tax. True, it may have a similar impact financially for most employees. But it does not feel the same, because most of us don’t quite understand it. It also does nothing to address the real issues in the UK tax system. The freezing of thresholds has created catastrophic marginal rates, with some people facing 60 per cent to 70 per cent in taxes on every extra pound they earn. It would have been far better to address that than cut everyone’s National Insurance.

Even worse, this measure does nothing to address the fact that the UK has become, under this government, a ‘hostile environment’  for wealth and enterprise. It would have been better to cut the top rate of tax, or restore the reduced Capital Gains Tax exemption for people who start their own businesses. Even with only a few billion to play with, there would have been changes Hunt could have made that would have far more impact, and delivered a far more forceful ‘pro-growth’ message. In reality, a cut in NI is largely irrelevant to the mess the UK economy is in, and it will do nothing to rescue the Conservative party.