So there you have it, the chancellor has acknowledged that workers will likely end up paying for some of those big hikes to National Insurance by employers.

What it could mean is that wages will not rise as quickly as they may have done without the measure.

So one year, you might get a 2.5% pay rise, the next a 2% increase then a 1% bump.

The Conservatives cut workers’ National Insurance twice, the most recent of which was a pre-election giveaway. In total, that cost around £20bn a year.

Now Labour are increasing National Insurance for businesses to raise around £25bn.

The Bank of England’s former governor Meryn King has said that Labour should have been upfront about workers’ taxes from the get-go. Labour pledged not to raise workers’ taxes in its manifesto.

He criticised the Tories for cutting National Insurance in the first place given the pressures on the public finances. But he said: “Honestly, I think that would be much better now just to say to people ‘this is where we are’, be completely straight with people. Say ‘we made that pledge in the heat of an electoral battle, it was a mistake, we regret it and we’re going to unwind it’.”

Was Reeves’s comment to BBC Breakfast this morning tacit acknowledgement of this?