Reeves’s Budget is catastrophic for charities like Teenage Cancer Trust, warns patron Roger Daltrey

Roger Daltrey has raised about £34 million by staging concerts in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust over the past 24 years
Roger Daltrey has raised about £34 million by staging concerts in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust over the past 24 years - TEENAGE CANCER TRUST

Rachel Reeves’s Budget will have catastrophic consequences for cancer patients who depend on charities for their life-saving care, warned Roger Daltrey, The Who singer.

Mr Daltrey, who is honorary patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, has accused the Government of being ignorant of the vital role played in health care by charities, which he says will have to lay off staff because of the higher taxes being imposed on them.

Ms Reeves has refused to exempt charities from a rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions announced in last week’s Budget, which the sector has warned will have a direct impact on the services they can provide to some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Mr Daltrey has raised about £34 million by staging concerts in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust over the past 24 years. The funds have been used to build specialist wards in NHS hospitals as well as paying for specialist nurses and youth workers to care for 2,000 young people each year.

The Teenage Cancer Trust is one of four charities being supported by The Telegraph’s 2024 Christmas Charity Appeal, along with Alzheimer’s Research UK, the Army Benevolent Fund, and Humanity & Inclusion.

All charities face having to raise money to pay for the increase in employers’ NI contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, which will also kick in at the lower earnings threshold of £5,000 a year. It will cost charities an estimated £1.4 billion per year.

‘So little thought behind it’

Mr Daltrey said: “If we can’t raise more money we will have to lay people off. We have specialist nurses that are trained specifically to care for that 13-24 age group, and I don’t like to think about the consequences of this. To lose nurses would be catastrophic.

“The most amazing thing about this whole National Insurance increase is the ignorance from the Government, there is just so little thought behind it.

“Have these politicians got no idea how much charitable work is carried out within the NHS? Charities take an awful lot of burden off the NHS, not just Teenage Cancer Trust but Marie Curie Hospices, Macmillan nurses – then the Government goes and kicks you in the balls.

“I’m incredibly angry because the Government is just throwing money at the NHS thinking that will solve all the problems, which it quite clearly won’t, and it’s being funded partly by taking money from charities like ours. Was this all worked out on the back of a cigarette packet?”

Mr Daltrey, 80, said it was “really hard graft” to raise money for less well known charities, and that when it comes to health care charities “people think it’s all paid for by the Government, and it’s not”.

He said that while companies may be able to pass on the cost of extra NI payments to customers by raising their prices, charities have no option but to raise even more money or cut their costs, which means losing staff, which would be “heartbreaking”.

Unlike some charities, Teenage Cancer Trust receives no grant funding from the Government, meaning it is self-reliant for its entire income, which stood at £16.1m last year.

It employs just 175 people, most of whom are nurses or youth support workers, and was £5m in deficit last year as the cost of living crisis took a toll on donations.

Mr Daltrey said he is writing to Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, inviting him to visit one of the 28 specialist units established by Teenage Cancer Trust across the UK to impress on him how vital the work done by health care charities is.

Asked what he would say to Rachel Reeves if he met her, Mr Daltrey replied: “I would tell her to go and get a lesson in economics.”

Mr Daltrey, who is one of the most successful British recording artists of all time, was awarded a CBE in 2005 for his services to music and charities. As well as his support for Teenage Cancer Trust, he has raised money for research into Aids, breast cancer and Parkinson’s disease.