asked Her Majesty's Government:

What additional revenues would be generated by the removal of the upper earnings limit. [HL3569]

The yield from removing the upper earnings limit for employee class 1 national insurance contributions would be £8.5 billion for 2008-09.

This excludes any estimate of behavioural effects, which could be significant given the scale of the change.

The estimate is consistent with Budget 2008 assumptions and assumes that the NHS allocation contribution rates are unchanged.