Currently, an employee working 40 hours a week and paid today’s National Living Wage of £8.91 an hour, takes home £16,264.50 – after income tax and the current rate of National Insurance (12%).

Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme earlier today: “We made our decisions…the Chancellor set it out.

“There’s a very, very good case…for catching up with the backlog coronavirus has created in NHS operations and procedures and in solving a historic..rather unforgivable situation where, if you happen to come down with certain types of illnesses – particularly things like dementia – you can end up losing your home because long term social care doesn’t look after you.

“We made the decision as a Government to look after those things and we have said how we are going to do it which is a National Insurance increase.”

His remarks come after both The FT and the Telegraph reported yesterday evening that leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg had urged for scrapping the forthcoming tax hike in yesterday’s cabinet meeting.

It was alleged that Rees-Mogg argued the tax rise, agreed in September, was not justified as inflation and energy prices continue to surge.

The Times claimed that Rees-Mogg posited streamlining the number of civil servants as a way to make sizable savings.